#74 The Tinglish Trust
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Meet Mr. Ramachandran G. He is a tamil brahmin, lives in Chennai, drives a taxi to meet his daily needs and has a bank account in the Indian Overseas Bank. This is pretty much everything I know about him. I met him at the Chennai airport last week, who by the way convinced me to pay 20% higher than the normal fare in his broken english and fluent tamil to drop me at my desired location.
Halfway through the journey, Mr. Ramchandran did something unusual that actually shocked me. I was sitting at the back-left seat of the car, lost in my own thoughts, frequently checking google maps with narrowed eyes just to ensure that we are going in the right direction. This is when Mr. Ramchandran handed me his DEBIT CARD and his smartphone from the drivers seat. Honestly, this deed of him took me by surprise. Who does that? I swear he was not being robbed at gunpoint because I was the only one in the car. Initially I thought he wants me to pay for the trip now because he doesn’t trust that I will pay the full amount later. Maybe he will drop me right here after taking the money or maybe I am the one abducted and he wants me to pay him everything I have. Turned out Mr Ramchandran was onto something else. He spent the next 5 minutes explaining to me in Tinglish(Tamil + English) that he is unable to use GPay on his mobile and wants me to add his debit card details onto the app so that he could use it. He was able to receive money from other people, but unable to pay someone. Well, obviously. This seems to be the simplest explanation. Remember Occam’s Razor? How simpler explanations are more likely to be true than complicated ones? I anyhow did what he wanted but this led me to thinking how we as a society have lost the collective meaning of trust. On one hand, I was sitting at the back seat with google maps on, just to be safe and make sure the guy follows the right path, doesn’t take me to an isolated place and rob me. And on the other hand, there’s Mr Ramchandran who gave me his bank account details because he trusted me. He somehow knew going to the bank would be a waste of his time when he could trust a passenger of his and get the card details added. This incident led me to think deeply about trust.
Trust is a very essential tool in life. Without trust, life becomes intolerable - a constant battle agains paranoia. You can’t have relationships without trust, intimacy depends upon it. Just pause for a moment and think how your life would turn out to be without trust. Someone has to begin the cycle of trust by an act of faith.. It’s no use waiting for the other person to make the first move. They maybe waiting for you. It takes a conscious act of unconditional belief in other person’s good sense, ability, honesty and commitment to set the ball rolling. However, your trust can sometimes be misplaced. Life isn’t perfect. Just because some people are untrustworthy doesn’t mean everyone is untrustworthy. Trust has to start somewhere. Why not with you? Why not today? Why not right now?
I am obsessed with the concept of flying. And by obsessed I mean OBSESSED. Sometimes I think my alter ego is a pilot. I’ve always been a fan, but never a player. It’s a different world altogether when seen from a height. There is something primal in our nature – something that wants to simply spread out wings, and feel the breeze blowing past our ears, something that makes us feel how it feels to fly, both literally and metaphorically. Remember when they taught us about the different modes of transportation and how airplane was the fastest amongst all? I can’t recall if they ever told us about the feeling of flying and the beauty you see up there in the sky. This is how you learn to appreciate beauty and see how the world looks like from an eagle’s eye. If you too are an aviation enthusiast, check out this channel, you would definitely love it!
See you next Saturday, until then have a great weekend :)
Cheers!
A FEW THINGS KEEPING ME AWAKE
Thread: No two lovers have ever loved as they did
Youtube: Our Planet
Song I am listening to: All you need is love
Thought of the week: "I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said."
MEME OF THE WEEK
SARCASTIC REFLECTION
Here are the last three posts if you were too occupied to read them -