During my graduation I was very active in spreading awareness about the cleanliness and traffic rules. At the same time I was preparing for my MBA entrance exams. One of my school friend was studying in Pune at that time. His name was Umang. He had invited me to visit him. So I was excited about visiting my friend.
Umang was pursuing his graduation in Liberal arts from Symbiosis College. We were school friends. He often complained that I do not visit him. I was in the 3rd year of my graduation and was studying in the Saurashtra University at that time.
He had invited me to Pune and “see the actual world” as he used to call it. When he came to visit me in the Diwali vacation, for hours we discussed about Pune student culture, the students in his college were very politically correct and how he was getting mocked by everyone for being a gujju their. I could see a lot of change in Umang’s accent. We used to spend hours in chit-chatting about his classmates and some really good interactions that he had in the class with his history teachers. His history classes were very interesting to attend. He told that “one should get a popcorn and sit in the history class”.
Few months later after my graduation and completing all the competitive exams I decided to visit my friend.
I went to the nearest ticket reservation office to buy the tickets in tatkal. I went early and waited their. As I was standing their. I observed that a little farther then me, a railway official and two other RPF employees were having a chat with each other while one of them threw a masala wrapper on the ground. I quickly took the initiative and tried to stop the railway official,
Me(loudly)- Hey, can you please pick that wrapper that you just threw on the station?
Employee(smirk face)- Who are you? What are you doing here?
Me- I am waiting to book my tickets to Pune. I think we should keep our surroundings clean and thus it is really wrong to throw wrappers on the ground.
The railway employee stormed inside his cabin with an angry face.
RPF employee- Why did you talk to him like that? He is the station head here. What are you doing here?
Me- I understand but throwing garbage on the platform is also not the right thing to do. Isn’t it? I and my friends hold cleanliness campaigns in the city.
The RPF employee walked away and said in a low voice, “Kids these days! Huh!”
I saw the station head entering the ticket office and leaving from their. I got my tickets to Pune anyway and happily called my friend that I was coming to visit him. It was the morning train. I had this habit of stopping people from throwing garbage everywhere but I had realized that I had to control that behavior since there will be a lot of people in the sleeper coach who would throw wrappers outside from the train.
Life experiences 