A healthy fear

Someone in some telugu movie once said, "One should have a healthy respect towards fear". I totally agree. Of course, while overcoming fear is essential to success, most of us do not start from a place of 'no fear'. No wonder some people argue that fear of failure too is essential to success. Fear usually occurs when we are entering a zone of uncertanty, when we try things we have not tried before, so when there is fear, it indicates that we are trying to push our comfort zone. So such fear is quite natural for anyone, but fear that impedes one's growth ought to be handled. While fear of darkness is totally understandable, the fear of light is what one must dispel and that's what my recent post mainly focuses on. And anyway, nobody can ever definitively give a sense of finality to concepts such as these. As we all know, the same thing operates very differently under different contexts.

Again, in a totally different context, I'll narrate something that happened today.

So today morning, I was travelling in a Mini-Taxi and the auto driver was overtaking the vehicles in front of him in a wrong direction abruptly and rashly (Sorry, after writing it out here, I recollected what happened and there was nothing wrong with the direction per se, it was the manner in which he overtook, that was problematic) Even I could make it out that this driver was driving the vehicle pretty wrongly haphazardly (and irresponsibly ofcourse!). Actually, my travel itself was just some 5 mins, so I continued to go with it, else I would have got down. Infact, I remember getting off such rash vehicles twice before, even when the travel time was like 5 mins, when the drivers insisted - "Hamare driving aisich hothi hain madam!" (Our driving will be like this only madam!) Ok, I never argued with them but insisted to get off the vehicle so that atleast they would understand.

This time I tried to be patient with this guy. You should see the absurd sense of driving these Mini-Taxi drivers exhibit in Hyderabad. It's like they would stop the vehicle anywhere and everywhere if they see a potential customer. Anyway back to the episode, so this driver was overtaking wrongly and it happened twice within 3 mins. And in the next minute, the third time he overtook another Mini-Taxi, he actually hit it pretty hard to its right. Now, the civic sense within me overcame my patience and did not allow me to keep quiet anymore, so I started speaking up.

Me: Kya bhayya, kyaa aap dekhre, kaise chalaaree ghaadi? (Brother, are you checking how you are driving?)
Driver: Haun madam. (Yes mam.)
Me: Yeh hamare jindagi ki baat hain! Peeche se buses aare aur aap...? (This is a matter of our lives! Buses are coming from behind and you...)
Driver: Vehicle ko insurance hain madam, parvaah nahin... (almost in a mocking tone!) (This vehicle has got insurance madam, so it's ok!)
Me: (I was like - damn it, how dare you demean the value of our lives and speak about your damn vehicle, now let me make it very clear to you what I mean) Kyaa insurance, itne saare log hain andhar (actually 6 including me, and then a child below 4 years and a baby less than 1 year)... (What insurance, so many people are inside this vehicle...)
Driver: Marna hain thoo kabhi bhee mar sakthe hain! (If we are supposed to die, we can die anytime!)
Me: (I reached my destination, so as I was getting down I intended to say - marna ek din jaroor, lekin hamare vajaa se koyi aur marna nahi hain naa. (Die we will have to someday, but others shouldn't die because of us, right?) But that guy while collecting money from me started to say laughing out loud...)
Driver: Darke muth jeena, darke nahin jeena! (Don't live with fear, don't live under fear)
Me: (Again I intended to say - darke thoo jeena nahin hain, lekin kam se kam saavdhaani se tho jeena hain naa (Ofcourse, we shouldn't live with fear, but we should atleast live with caution, right?) - but the guy was in no mood to listen and was already getting ready to go. Something inside me got irritated due to this mix up of events and I quite involuntarily said) Marna hain thoo aap maro, lekin doosroo ko thoo jeene deejiyee. (If you want to die, yes you die, but let others live!)

The guy, as you would have guessed it by this time, laughed out casually and sped up his vehicle. I was never so vocal with drivers during public commutation before. And I was actually surprised I uttered that last sentence out. I was sure I meant him no harm and quickly prayed to God for a moment that nothing should happen to him and walked away to my destination further. But I was still thinking, how could I say that?

Maybe, this is one advantage of getting older. Few years ago, I was pretty cautious with drivers and the like and never spit words with them. Perhaps with age, I started to feel that it is okay to patronize people (outsiders too!) at times!