Transition

There is relationship in anything you say or do! Or else, why would you call it “mine”.

- Vinod Menon

The night bus that rides across the state border has stopped. All passengers alight in front of a restaurant. After dinner, you come back to your seat and observe some strange bag and water bottle lying on your seat. To that unruly passenger, you call out, “Please clear your baggage out from my seat!” Yes! Now, do you remember addressing it as ‘my seat’? How does the seat become your individualised personal property? The bus begins to move. And then, you realise the passenger in the next seat is missing. Looking out of the window, you spot him in a tea shop. And you call out “Our bus is moving, You must hurry back!” Here, you address as “our bus”. Yes! These are the two contexts.

At one level, it is ‘ my seat’. But, at another, it is ‘our bus’. How did the change in context occur? This is when you learn to be flexible. The range of perception has to vary. It is your ‘individual journey’ on one level, and at another level, the journey is collective. In the realm of the ‘individual journey’ there is a necessity for orderliness. Your ‘individual seat’ is finite. And you are establishing a sense of entitlement. There is limited space to manoeuver. The wise are those who can negotiate their way through such limited frames. The mind can begin to cut up this argument into little pieces. Maybe, you can charge a fee and carry the bag in your seat. The other person, owner of the luggage can pay for the comfort. Or else, you can protest that his baggage cannot be placed on your seat. Do you have this skill to open up the framework of this dispute?