The beautiful struggle: a lone fisherman tries to catch a meal in Ali Bagh |
Even after making this shift dozens of times, I still fail
to maneuver between the realities of the two worlds I find myself in: for example, the fact
that 22
out of every 25 children will drop out of school by the 5th grade in
Pakistan while I’m at school with 800 classmates who are now apart of the 2
out of every 25 American citizens with a masters degree.
As I boarded my flight yesterday – physically and
emotionally exhausted from three weeks of piloting an education venture in India
and Pakistan – I prepared for the transition to be as difficult and confusing
as usual.
During my stop over in Abu Dhabi, however, I was reminded of
a powerful lesson. While waiting for my connecting flight, I met the nicest
40-something year old woman who was traveling from India. We talked for some
time about what she was doing in India, the business she started and the work
her husband does, her daughters studying in college, etc. It was only after the
never-ending 15 hour flight, as I was helping her get her bags, that she told
me the real reason she was traveling to India: her beloved mother had tragically
passed away after falling down a large set of stairs, and her beloved father
had then committed suicide because he couldn’t manage to live without her.
…I was speechless...
Over the past few hours, I haven’t been able to stop
thinking about this woman, the struggle she is going through, and a quote from
a friend’s email signature:
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
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The beautiful struggle: Two of my friends, Raj and Indu, from the Dharavi slum in Bombay |
Instead, perhaps our responsibility should be to offer a
smile, a hello, a thank you, or even a free-pass / benefit of the doubt the
next time someone seems to not care about the same things by which we are
burdened. Because the reality is, they are probably in the middle of fighting a
battle of their own, and they might actually need our support (or at least our understanding).
Thanks for the reminder =)
ReplyDeletethanks Hima!
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