The old newspapers have been piling up and it was the time to sell them off. Selling old newspapers have pleasant memories for me. When we were kids, we would eagerly await the day that Dad sells newspapers to the local kabadiwala. The money that he gets by selling those old papers is divided among my brother and me and that was one major source of pocket money those days. The amount would never be greater that Rs 50 for each of us, yet it was a much awaited event. Anyway, I digress.
The bell rang and I opened it to see a young guy dress in a pair of jeans and t-shirt holding a touch screen Samsung Corby. He wished me good morning and he said he has come to collect the old newspaper. He said all that in impeccable English. This was new to my preconditioned mind. We started taking the newspapers out and in between he asked us if we have checked the papers properly to make sure that there were no important papers inside. He sorted them to double check and did his job swiftly. Weighed them properly, used the calculator on his phone and calculated the money. We were sort of surprised because generally both S and I have fought while we sell the newspaper as they invariably weigh it less.
Finally, I succumbed to it. Though I am not very proud of it, I could not resist asking him about how he knows good English. He smiled and replies saying that he is just learning it, because most of his customers do not know Kannada and he does not want to lose good clients because of not knowing a language. He said soon he will learn Hindi too. He said he watches TV to learn sentences and its not difficult to learn. He added that business is very good for him and its going in a profitable way but the competition is high. Wow, impressed I was by knowing that he understands some business tactics.
After he left, I could not help thinking about why was I so amused about he speaking English. Well, I know for a fact that knowing good English does not make you an achiever or bring automatic success to you. Yet, for him, it was necessary to impress his clients and strike a rapport with them. Even then why should I be surprised? I guess it goes back to my conditioning where we naturally assume ideas and create stereotype. As much as I like to assume that I stay away from stereotyping anyone or anything, the subconscious preconditioned mind intervenes and baffles me. This takes me back to a good post by Arushi.
May be the next time, I should not get surprised and just take it as normal. Will I succeed? If I don't, it may find its place in the bog. If I will, then it may not because then I would have matured enough to pass it off as something normal.
The bell rang and I opened it to see a young guy dress in a pair of jeans and t-shirt holding a touch screen Samsung Corby. He wished me good morning and he said he has come to collect the old newspaper. He said all that in impeccable English. This was new to my preconditioned mind. We started taking the newspapers out and in between he asked us if we have checked the papers properly to make sure that there were no important papers inside. He sorted them to double check and did his job swiftly. Weighed them properly, used the calculator on his phone and calculated the money. We were sort of surprised because generally both S and I have fought while we sell the newspaper as they invariably weigh it less.
Finally, I succumbed to it. Though I am not very proud of it, I could not resist asking him about how he knows good English. He smiled and replies saying that he is just learning it, because most of his customers do not know Kannada and he does not want to lose good clients because of not knowing a language. He said soon he will learn Hindi too. He said he watches TV to learn sentences and its not difficult to learn. He added that business is very good for him and its going in a profitable way but the competition is high. Wow, impressed I was by knowing that he understands some business tactics.
After he left, I could not help thinking about why was I so amused about he speaking English. Well, I know for a fact that knowing good English does not make you an achiever or bring automatic success to you. Yet, for him, it was necessary to impress his clients and strike a rapport with them. Even then why should I be surprised? I guess it goes back to my conditioning where we naturally assume ideas and create stereotype. As much as I like to assume that I stay away from stereotyping anyone or anything, the subconscious preconditioned mind intervenes and baffles me. This takes me back to a good post by Arushi.
May be the next time, I should not get surprised and just take it as normal. Will I succeed? If I don't, it may find its place in the bog. If I will, then it may not because then I would have matured enough to pass it off as something normal.
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