A Short Story

This is my first attempt at writing a short story. An incident which took place during my travel from Bangalore to Delhi made me write this.

I boarded the Bangalore-New Delhi early morning flight at 5.30 AM. I had chosen a window seat as usual. Next to me a kid of around 6-7 years age and his mother were seated. The father had got a seat at the rear end of the plane.

This kid started throwing tantrums. He started speaking loudly as though he was at home. His mother tried to calm him down but he didn’t listen one bit. Then the kid opened a tablet kind of device. I realized that this kid was pampered to the core. He started playing Cricket with high volume. His mother asked him to mute and play but as usual he didn’t listen. He kept playing for a while. Breakfast was served. He was grumping about something or the other all the time. Way he sat on his seat was unique as well. He stretched his legs and sat almost in diagonal kind of way. He refused to wear seat belts initially but later was forced to wear by the flight attendant.

We reached Delhi and there was another surprise in store. He had his skating shoes and both the parents were helping him to skate. The kid again was grumpy. He asked his mother to hold him properly. It had reached heights as far as I was concerned. A 6-7 year old kid with latest gadget, skating shoes and add to this is his erratic behavior in not even listening her mother’s instructions.

I felt parents as directly responsible for whatever the kid is now. They might have fulfilled all his wishes - bought the things which he desired, never scold him for his irrational behavior and so on.

I had a connecting flight to Kanpur and made my way into domestic transfer section. Completed my security check and was collecting my laptop bag. I looked back and there was this same kid who was undergoing security check. He had his skating shoes on and his parents standing beside him. The security guard enquired why is he wearing this kind of shoes. The father replied that the kid has been diagnosed with an ailment where he cannot walk properly and has to be escorted by someone all the time with the skates on. 

I was stunned when I heard it. All my earlier interpretations about the parents and kid were completely one-sided. I just imagined certain things and came to a conclusion. I had painted a bad image of kid and parents. I had done a mistake. I just didn’t have the courage to even look at the kid or parents face.

I had learnt a very big lesson of jumping to conclusions without giving it a good thought. We do it many a times in our life. We interpret others based on some perception which is highly subjective. We tend to become judgmental and end up branding the person as bad.