On my way to office everyday, my rickshaw halts at a junction signal for 2-3 minutes. The junction is always filled with a crowd of beggars and eunuchs trying their luck at each and every vehicle passing by… a total noisy affair.
Normally, any beggar coming to me would be offered a few coins …not that I was unaware of the fact that half of the face they put up was fake, but because they were humans and many of them may have had a devastating story behind their current state.
However, the eunuchs, I hated them … for the way they behaved … for the way they spoke and most annoyingly, for the way they clapped…I never gave them a single penny since I did not consider them under the category “humans”… I sometimes felt animals would be more civilized..
Any eunuch coming to me would be dismissed away rudely since I just couldn’t tolerate their lack of subtleness…. And they would move away murmuring something or sometimes, nothing…
I remember an embarrassing situation one such eunuch put me in …Once I was travelling with my friend, a guy friend, on our way to catch up with some more friends for lunch, when a eunuch appeared and started coaxing us to give her(using the female gender since I have to use some gender ) some alms… we just wouldn’t budge… suddenly she started speaking out in a loud voice saying that we’re a great couple and that we would get married ! And to add to the abashment, she also announced that we would have three children !! We were shocked to the core and saw that we were suddenly surrounded by faces turned toward us..some inquisitive, some laughing and a few familiar !… We had no option but to simply oblige to her demands and give her whatever she wanted so that we could somehow make our way out of that place …… and situation!
This impression always lasted in my mind and I felt eunuchs were one of the worst and good-for –nothing species on this planet…
This morning was slightly different. It was a weekday and as usual I was hurrying to office, but it was the beginning of a new lesson…
One of the eunuchs came up to me and asked me for money. Something in her caught my attention; she was different… she wasn’t noisy, neither did she clap… she humbly requested for money… I was tempted to give her a few coins… but something inside me stopped me from doing so and I put her away. To my surprise, she did not curse me or murmur bad words at me, neither did she walk away angrily. Instead, she had a pleasant smile on her face while she motioned to me indicating that it was alright if I didn’t want to give…
I wasn’t quite sure about this behaviour, it was not something I have come across before. So I decided to observe her since I wasn’t yet ready to shed my general notion about eunuchs. I kept observing the eunuch.. she went about in the same manner seeking for alms and dealt with rejection in the same pleasant manner.
I was amazed at the way this eunuch replied to negativity with positivity. That day I learnt one great lesson…”Negativity cannot be conquered with negativity, it needs to be conquered with positivity”.
From that day on, I kept meeting the eunuch everyday at the junction, giving her small amounts of money and exchanging smiles. We shared a rapport that was not one of an illiterate eunuch and a literate woman, but one of mutual respect.
One day as I neared the junction, the eunuch came to me. I was reading the book ‘The Family’, the last classic by the author of Godfather, Mario Puzo. The eunuch asked me “Which book are you reading?” I was taken aback. The eunuch actually spoke English! On seeing the author of the book she exclaimed “Mario Puzo !!” and then continued, “Is it Godfather?” By now I was in a state of complete shock and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I barely managed to say “No. It’s The Family”. The eunuch continued, “I wanted to read The Godfather since quite a long time” and then named a list of books, some of which I hadn’t even heard of. “If you get the book The Godfather, please give it to me, I would love to read it”, she said excitedly. I felt belittled. Here was a eunuch, a socially dispraised entity, talking about books by great authors and craving to read them ! I learnt one more lesson … “Never underestimate anybody, no matter what their appearance, their profession or their social standing is.”
I smiled at the eunuch in amazement, but as though unaware of the fact that I was surprised, she went on, “If I am not there, please hand it over to the florist out there. I will collect it from him and will somehow pay you the rent for the book ”
My respect and admiration for the eunuch doubled and I learnt my third lesson, ”Respect isn’t earned by what you are, but by what you speak and how you speak, or by what you do and how you do it.”
I haven’t met the eunuch after that till date. I’m waiting with The Godfather in my bag .
Will keep you guys posted about my next encounter with “The Eunuch”
PS: And yeah I have stopped behaving the way I used to behave with eunuchs earlier, I have seen how human they can be
