Black, white and many shades of grey in between…………

On the morning of what was probably the most traumatic day of my life, I was standing outside an apartment block in Mumbai, looking for a cab to take me to the hospital, where the person most precious to me was to be operated on.

A taxi stand right there, and two taxis. One with no driver in sight, and the other, obviously the don of the stand, relaxing in his taxi,who point blank refused to ply to where I wanted to go.

I was visibly upset and frantic, and the guy was watching my failed attempts at getting any of the taxis passing by to go my way.

After a couple of minutes, he came out of his taxi, went to the middle of the road, flagged the next taxi that passed by, told him to take me where I wanted to go, and asked me to get in.

What do I make of this guy? Should I paint him black for refusing to ply for me? Paint him white for getting me a ride, for his kindness and sensitivity to my obvious distress? But why didn’t he drive me himself?

I think he is the same as you and me – a blend of many things, a shade of grey that is neither black nor white; a person who can be many people; And I don’t want to waste time trying to understand what made him behave the way he did – neither the ‘bad’ nor the ‘good’

I realise that a lot of time is wasted, and unnecessary invisible barriers get built, biases set in, when I start painting people black or white based on encounters that are positive or negative, as I experience it.  I don’t have a way of knowing if that is the real him or her, or was it that specific day and time, when something made them behave that way? Who is entirely ‘good’ or ‘bad’?

I find that when I am able to suspend judgement and remain neutral with people, especially during not so great encounters, the same person is probably a different being the next time around. It is so much easier for me to keep the lines open, and some surprising positive outcomes have strengthened my belief in this ‘neutral’ stance. I am in no way a doormat, far from it in fact, so this doesn’t mean someone can walk all over me or get away with consistent rude or poor behaviour.

But this new approach has helped me in keeping the lines open with colleagues, with people who provide various service, and strangers who cut in front of my car, or push past me in the queue. I am more relaxed, react less often to their apparent ‘black’, and find it helps.

No, that wasn’t me who made a sarcastic remark to that rude man at the check-in counter, you must have seen someone else 🙂