Sometimes in your short journeys in day to day life , we meet ppl who leave a lasting impression on us . Some 2 weeks ago when me and my roomie were going to watch ‘New York’ at Mayajaal from Thiruvanmiyur , i met two old retired men with whome i had a lovely smalltalk .
I was one of the standees in the bus (quite common here). One old person (Old man 1 ) was standing besides me and another old man(old man 2) was sitting on the seat next to Old man 1. Old man 1 was holding few items in his hand.
Old Man 2 : I think things u r holding might be quite heavy . Please hand it over to me, i will hold it for u.
Old Man 1: No No, its fine . Thanks for asking (a polite reply with a smile) 
Old Man 1 : Hindi teriyun ?(Do u know Hindi ? in tamil)
Old Man 2 : teriyada (no, i don’t know Hindi)
Old Man1 : Thrs a saying in Hindi ‘Jab tak hamari haddiyon main dum hai, hum doosron ke aage haath kyun failayen’ which translates to, till we have strength in our bones , why should we depend on others .
Hearing such a dialogue of pride and independence from a old man in his mid 70s, i couldn’t help but smile. Old man 1 noticed the smile.
Old Man1 to Old Man 2 : see, this young man is smiling. He is not laughing, just smiling . Smile shows love and affection towards a person whereas laugh shows criticism and mockery.
Old man 1 to me : so where r u from young man.
Me: i am from orissa sir.
and our small talk started from here. We talked about how chennai has been treating me, wht i do , what old man 1 used to do, wht old man 2 used to do, what r my food habits, wht do thier children do etc.
Both the old men were government employees and retired now , but they get a steady pension and with their sons settled in chennai, thier life is quite comfortable now. below are few more extracts from the conversation which i remember
Old man 1 to old man 2: Which dept. were u in ?
Old man 2: I was in revenues.
Old man 1: Hmm …. the dept. to churn out money 
(revenue dept is considered to be the best to churn money as the upari u get there is much more than ur salary)
Another one …
Old man 2: when i joined the job, i was paid Rs 75 per month . Then i used to save Rs. 30 per month. A cup of tea used to be 2 Annas(Those not familiar with anna , an anna is equivalent to 6 paise . An rupee is made of 100 paise). A bag of rice used to cost Rs 2. I was not happy on earning Rs 75 as i had lots of responsiblities , though Rs 75 was a good salary those days . Now govt. is paying me a pension of Rs 5000 and i m quite happy with it though i don’t save any of it.
They talked about thier houses, one in neelankarai and another in pallavakam . They were quite happy with what they had achieved in life.
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In our life time we should consider ourselves blessed if we can be half as happy as they are today.