Innocence.....

It was a late evening cab ride from the Mumbai’s CST to a friend’s place in Lokhandwala . After spending more than 25 years in Orissa, where the skyline is as complacent as the aspirations of its people, it was a different experience to look at the sky scrappers from the cab window and to ponder over the minds of the mumbaikars who dwell in these structures.

The Cab was just crossing the Hiranandani apartments and all of a sudden it stopped , making some strange noise. The driver and his assistant came out to check the engine . After couple of minutes they told me that it is an engine failure and the cab cannot move at this moment and asked me to pay the bill and take another cab.

So no alternatives left, I pulled out a 500 rupee note from my wallet and handed over to the driver . After a couple of second’s strange look at me my face & to my utter surprise , the driver asked me to pay him the remaining bill , telling I have given him a Rs100/- note.

The evening darkness, the bollywood stories on theft, the lonely bridge and the busy travellers ……all made me feel a bit more unsafe. After a couple of minutes of fruitless argument, I finally gave up& paid what he asked . Later I found that they had cheated me in the meter too.

After a month, in a similar situation, when a cab driver was begging me for some twenty rupees more because of his ignorance about the distance, I witnessed a tremendous suspicion in my mind which never allowed me to even listen to a single word of him.

And couple of other incidents made me realise that, I have lost my ability to trust people. I have lost the belief that people are necessarily good unless compelled to behave otherwise. Everybody of us has been born innocent but many have lost it in due course of time.

For quite a long time, I have been in love with the word innocence often wondered what can be exact description of it. And the closest statement that comes to my mind to explain innocence is mind is “INNOCENCE IS THE ABILITY TO TRUST”. To me Innocence has been the most precious of human virtues, which gives you the space to live & the ability to love. Someone innocent has that confidence in him, that he is not be cheated, not be ditched.

But is innocence sustainable? Who deprives you from something so beautiful ? Why cannot we have an unflinching trust in everyone and everything ?