it’s very easy to be bogged down by work, especially if it seems the weight of the world is on your shoulders. it’s worse still if your parents are social workers and knows what it’s like to be taken for granted. i’ve been trapped in a state of hating going home and hating going to work though i loved the two of them dearly.

to top it all off, the world threw me a book that just floored me. i found it hard to stand up after. it seems that the most resilient people are the victims and the ones who truly hurt are the ones who stand outside and look at the injustice of it all.

making a difference … is it a myth? i’ve been attending sessions where they told us that just being there was such a big thing. i thought about it for days after … really? could that actually be true?

when i go through my list of things without pause, then you know something’s bothering me. today, i ticked off a lot of things on that list. i didn’t feel any better about it. people tell me i think too much. perhaps i do.

my intellectualizing everything didn’t help. mr.zerox (no, no. not xerox. that would be plagiarism) showed me that i was going back to complicating things. there i was getting the session handouts done. i don’t know why i keep going back to the same guy, but he does such a good job. i know he’s a malyali because of his accent. i know he speaks flawless hindi, kannada, tamil and telugu. i know he makes print outs, photocopies and even recharges the phone. i find myself disappointed when i don’t seem him behind the counter. and i find myself feeling lighter when he gets off his chair and walks up to the big cannon machine. ‘actually, i don’t know why people call it xerox. all i’m doing is photocopying in a cannon machine. if xerox had patented its’ name, imagine the money they would have made by now’. i smiled.

what else do i know about him? when he gets a call when he’s copying the session handouts, he puts the other person on hold and tells them he’s doing something special. did he mean it? i struggle with my instincts. he’s helping in a way he’ll probably never know. he’s helping spread the cause to 70 people who will turn out to be supports to 70 children. those 140 people will go back home and treat people with the same sensitivity they will come to learn, they will raise their children mindfully. their children will have their own circles, their family will have their own circles. does mr.zerox know the number of lives he’s touching just by pressing copy on that machine that occupied half the room?

i closed my eyes for two seconds like i always do when i want the image stuck in my head. i took a mental photo. i observed how i was feeling and let it go. i wanted to thank him for being such a wonderful person and for making life such a lovely state to be in. i wanted to thank him for the number of children he would help rescue, the number of people he’d help sensitize. i was feeling overwhelmed. i smiled at him and hoped he’d notice how grateful i was.

‘how much?’…. ‘150 bucks madam’. the price of saving the world …

i didn’t ask him his name.