Respect!

When I first landed in Bangalore, I was stunned by the generosity of the people. They had a such welcoming heart and they were so friendly, that one of my friends considered me as his own sister and started introducing me to his family members as his little sister. It takes a lot to accept some outsider as your family member. He gave me a family in Bangalore that I could visit anytime. The million dollar question here is .. "What did he lose by doing so?".. I'll leave it to others to think of the answer

Next, coming to the attitude of these B'lore guys, I've seen few of my friends addressing the auto drivers , watchman etc by calling them "Sir" .. When I asked them why, their answer wasn't an expected one - "These people( with low cadre jobs as we see in India) would not be respected, they will not be respected by their profession or age. So, we can be kind to them by respecting them." 

This made me ponder on these lines "What on earth will we lose by respecting our fellow human being ? Literally nothing! What is wrong in thanking the auto driver for driving us home ? Of course, he just did his job. But he drove us safely to our destination. Isn't that enough for us to thank him ?"

As days passed, I landed in UK for my first onsite. I had to spend the initial days setting up the application and one of my colleagues helped us extensively in that aspect. I had few doubts regarding the application setup and when I went to his place - I found a note which read - "Don't treat a person as a resource". This came as a slap to me because I  was one who always had the mindset that "Only toppers are eligible friends to me and only top performers are eligible colleagues to me" . The same question again "What will I lose by respecting a person?"

To be continued ...