Use Your Brain

I did not have breakfast and started to office. I usually take a route that is not with much traffic. On the way, I usually find people selling tender coconuts on bicycles and today also I saw one person selling tender coconuts and stopped by his side to get one. I parked my bike in side-stand as I knew it would take only a few minutes to drink the coconut water and start form there. So the bike was parked slanting a little.

I pointed to a larger coconut in his bicycle and asked the coconut seller to give me that coconut. He told it would cost me 12 rupees. I asked him the reason for the increase by 2 rupees and he told me it was because the coconut was larger. I did not want to argue with him and I just expressed my dissatisfaction about the price and asked him to give that same coconut.

There was a small boy who was standing next to me and watching me getting the coconut and drinking the water. After drinking the coconut water, I gave the coconut seller, the shell, to break it for me to eat the coconut inisde. I saw this boy watching me for a long time and I thought he would want a coconut and asked him whether he wanted to drink one. He shook his head in a way meaning he did not want.

I did not ask the boy out of generosity. I asked him because, I have heard people saying 'If you make a person watch while you are eating, you will get stomach ache'. So I did not want any stomach aches :) . Through this I just wanted to inform God, that I was not the one who is not giving the coconut to the boy, but it was the boy himself who declined the offer I made, so that God would not give me any stomach aches.

While I was eating the coconut, the coconut seller asked me to give him the money so that he need not wait for me and he could go on with his job. I was having the cocnut shell in my hand and I was searching a place to keep it. I could not keep it on my bike seat for it was slanting. So I just pushed down the helmet lock that was fit to the seat handle in the back, and tried to keep it next to it so that the lock would save it from falling down.

I could not fit the shell in the available place even though i tried the same for two three times. Then the seller suggested me to pull the lock upwards and keep the shell under the lock. I had a doubt whether that will work but tried it and it worked. So after keeping the shell there, I took out my hand kerchief to wipe my hand to take out my purse.

By the time I took out my kerchief, the coconut seller sarcastically smiled and said, "Abhi thoda dimaag bhi kaam karna padega sir!!" ("Now your brain also should work a little sir!!" - for those who can't understand this Hindi statement). After he told this, I was looking at him and looking at myself. I was wondering how this could have happened. A person who (looks like) does not even know how a school campus would look like, is advising a person who had 14 years of education in school from K.G , 4 years of PROFESSIONAL education in an engineering college, and a few years of job in a software company, to use his brain. I could not tell anything in reply and I was laughing inside, thinking about the funny part of the incident.