Friday, August 12

Mention not...

He stood dumbfounded. I looked at him and smiled. “What happened?”

“What did you say right now?” he was curious.

Pradeep, our company driver is twenty-five. I had forgotten to get one important document from my place. I rang him up and made sure that he gets it while coming to office. A low-income-below average family brought up, he studied only till seventh standard. From then he had tried finding a living driving taxis, rickshaw’s, trucks and now in our company.

He had a flashing memory, at least regarding the roads and places. That’s what I had prejudged about him when he joined our company. But he shows interest in other things also and learns things very fast. He had sneaked on others computer when he was free and learnt many things with ever evolving questions. Now he can switch on a computer, log in to his company id and play ‘Solitaire’, create a drawing in ‘Paint’, scribble something in ‘Word’ etc.

Only knowing his mother tongue Marathi and national language Hindi, he used to listen when I spoke in English or in my regional dialect Malayalam. He asks its meaning very curiously and try to pronounce the way I used to. And every time he used to use those words with while conversing.

“What did you say?” He asked me again. I got out from my thoughts. I had thanked him when he brought me the document I had left at home. When I thanked he was very happy and said “Welcome!” giving an extra stress to the second syllable. He was feeling an overweening pride. It was then I said “No mention please.” He hasn’t heard that term used before. I instilled its usage into him. He was very happy. He skedaddled from there reciting those words in joy.

How its true, curiosity is the mother of invention.

5 comments:

Dewdrop said...

Awesome post. I hopped here via Keshi's blog and this reminds me of my younger days with Vaiju, my maid's daughter back home. My maid would usually bring her daughter along at work. While she used to be busy doing our home chores of cleaning and washing, Vaiju,(then abt 12 yrs old) would spend time with me peeking into my text books asking me questions, leaning few words of English. I would take great pride in teaching her English words and she would rejoice chanting them aloud. Thanks for rekindling my memory bulbs. You have a nice blog going here.

Vinz said...

@Hagrid,...

well said friend...thts indeed in the parcel of life..

@dewdrop...

Thns dewdrop for sharing ur xperiance...And the pride part is very true..When someone learn from us its really something i would love to cherish...Happy to hav created the same stirr on you memory also...

Sindhuja Parthasarathy said...

:)the last line finished like it was the moral of the story ;)
btw,how did u get to my blog?We know eachother?

Dawn said...

WOW...awesome post!!!

Vinz said...

@dawn..

Thanx dawn