Unexpected politeness

Living in a big city and interacting with so many people, I sometimes wonder if we have forgotten how to be polite. Not even a day passes when we don't encounter rudeness on the road, in the market, in a queue, over the phone, in government offices...it seems to have become a part of us.

My experiences with government officials have been mostly negative -- most don't have patience, they don't want to reply to your queries, it's a real pain to ask them anything and they will almost always delay your work. Sometimes I wonder if their salaries should be sent home -- considering they don't seem to be interested in what they're doing anyway! In fact it's so rampant now that the day I meet someone polite, I thank my stars, really. So when I met a very pleasant lady in a government shop today, I was pleasantly surprised.

Mum and I went to the emporia in CP. We entered one relatively less crowded one (some are more well-known so more people go there). Like I said, the lady at the counter was sooooo polite, she patiently showed Mom some sarees and me some kurtas. I was a bit unsure about the size and fitting and she explained that it would fit well and also suggested that I could wear it with jeans or salwar and if needed, only slight alteration was required. Mum asked her if she was from Tripura and she replied in the affirmative, laughed, and added that 'now you know why my Hindi is so bad'. It was very good, we assured her. It seriously was, there was only a slight problem that non-Hindi speakers face with respect to male and female references. :) Mom told her she had visited Assam on official trips but had not seen Tripura. She smiled and invited us to visit her home state. We would find it very nice, she said. As I was still struggling over the kurta, she told me to try it on, meanwhile explaining to Mum how the locals crafts people were experts in design and embroidery, but were obviously not fashion designers, so they were not very particular about sizes. We nodded. Mom chose a yellow cotton sari while egged on by the lady's behaviour, I took the kurta. We thanked her while leaving and she folded her hands in namaste and said, do come again.

Some cynics might think she was being polite to sell her stuff - but I don't agree with that. Government workers are the last people on earth who need to make an effort. They get their salaries anyway. Once I was admiring a long cotton skirt on display at a government handicrafts shop in Delhi and asked a salesman if I could see it, and what do I get? Without budging from his seat, he told me: Madam, it is for 2,000 rupees. I got so put off by his behaviour that I never went to that shop again. How rude! So it's not without reason that I'm praising the lady at the emporium. Her politeness made her stand out in the crowd. Mum said it reminded her of the film 'Anand', where Rajesh Khanna would bump into strangers and strike up a conversation with great ease. Sometimes, a smile and warm behaviour is all someone wants. Let's all be a bit more polite and considerate towards people, so that the governemnt doesn't need to tell us to be more polite and less aggressive. It shouldn't come in the wake of the Commonwealth Games. We should show respect towards nice people naturally....there are very few anyway, let's not let that number dwindle.