I'll come along with my lawyer and drag you to court

I'll come along with my lawyer and drag you to court ...

On a routine day of my profession one is bound to see a panoply of faces around. Happy faces, sad faces, angry faces, despondent faces, lost faces: In this short span of time I've seen multiple ones. With each face comes a unique personality which I have to deal with. Most of them are easily dealt with and those  "which" aren't are simply snubbed openly. I would say it is one of the luxuries of working in a bureaucratic setup. But this one face tore trough all my offences and defenses and made me pen down this experience.

On a very busy Saturday came a man: A wrinkly old face with a trembling voice and a twitching body. On his shoulder a heavy bag hung along, so precious to the man that he might be treating it as his body part. After standing in the queue for about half an hour he came to my desk, kept his heavy bag on the table and pulled out a 5 pound collection of old documents.

Giving me a piercing gaze he pulled out  his pension papers from his bag and began,"You bankers have colluded with railway authorities and as a result I was devoid of promotion in 1978".  In the middle of day standing in between fifty highly irritating people, facing people like these is bound to be a painstaking experience. Now many of you might have dealt with these kind of situations but this is not why I am penning down this article. 

Having created enough upheaval in our rather monotonous lives, the man eventually became an object of caricature.  Our frustration gave way to laughter and our man was conveniently ignored. The supposed lunatic old man probably still had some sanity left in him. Seeing our behavior the "man" burst into anger, he shouted at me particularly(maybe I reminded him of something unpleasant!!).  He yelled that his wife left this world while fighting this case! Without wasting much time he took out his account pass book. Inside the book was a picture that haunted me to my core. 

I have never seen two people(in a photograph): Man and Wife at this level of peace with each other: Smiling the most heavenly smile a couple can manage. I saw the "man's" eyes. The age had taken its toll but the eyes still belonged to a man who valued his self respect more that anything. Lost, were his eyes perhaps in those prime years of his life. 

Suddenly I realized that I and most of us are going to go down the same path. The path will take us to a point where we'll probably become irritating old beings: A burden on the younger ones, harassing future bankers blaming them for promotional delays. The only thing that I can hope for is that when I reach that stage of lunacy, I find something like that photograph that gives me an iota of peace!Some moments in journey of life that remind me never to lose my self respect, reminding me what kind of a man I was! I pray the same for you all! My array of thoughts was broken by the old man who said," I'll come along with my lawyer and take you to court". He carried along his heavy leather body part and left while I watched all along, pondering about my old age. Then my supervisor said," The office is open on Sunday, do come " and things returned back to normal.  Not so much of a bureaucratic organisation eh!