What things should I never do?

Author: Adarsh Goswami

Yesterday I was heading towards home(Jhansi) from Bengaluru which is more than a day's journey so out of boredom I started to talk to the sweepers and workers about their life. One thing is for sure if you just pass a smile to these people they are ready to tell their entire life to you without a hesitation. Such was the conversation between me and Hari (pantry guy) :

I : Aap kaha se ho?

I : So where are you from?

Hari : Jharkhand se bhaiya. Aap kaha ja rhe hain?

Hari : I am from Jharkhand bhaiya(brother). Where are you going ?

I : Jhansi . Aur bataiye kaisa hai sab ? Kitna kama lete hain aap, kaam chal jata hai kya utne me?

I : I am going to Jhansi. (Then a moment of silence and inorder to break that silence i asked..) So how is life ? Whatever you get as an income, is it sufficient for survival ?"

Hari : Bhaiya 10k milta hai ,waise bhi bhut mushkil hai utne me rehna lekin 2-3k aane jaane me hi lag jata hai har mahine.

Hari : Bhaiya (Brother) I get a salary of 10k per month , anyways it is difficult to survive with 10k per month and the situation gets even worse when I need to give 2-3k every month for travelling cost.

I : Aana jana matlab? Aapko paisa dena padta hai kya train me chalne ka ?

I : By travelling cost what do you mean? Do you need to pay for your tickets?

Hari : Nahi bhaiya vo baat nhi hai, aana jana matlab jo cheej kho jati ya log le jate unke liye paisa hamko dena padta hai.Jaise har seat par ek khole(thick blanket), ek takiya, do aur kambal aur ek towel hoti hai. Har towel khone par hamko 43Rs salary se dena padta hai.Kuch log to ghar le jate hai towel uthake kisi ko to pay karna padta hai uska bhi.

Hari : No bhaiya(brother), by transportation cost I meant the cost which we need to pay if something goes missing. Every seat has a thick blanket, a pillow, two more thin blankets and a towel. Each towel costs ₹ 43 to us if lost. Some people take these towels home in their bags as if it is their property, someone needs to pay for it and the cost is actually deducted from our salary then.

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I am sure many of you might have heard of these kind of acts by people travelling in railways : bulbs from toilet,even fans, towels, blankets getting stolen and if you haven't it is their going on. Not to mention it is kind of a big deal to these workers who needs to pay 2-3k from their 10k salary for these petty thefts performed by us.

So please if you have ever done this kind of stuff before just never repeat it. And please share this message so that these people can live in a better society. If you have done this before I am sure you never knew about the consequences because you never bothered but my friend these acts can sometimes cost their kids to sleep having an empty stomach.

Be a bit reasonable. One towel, one bulb, one blanket won't make you rich, but it can surely hurt some people.

Together lets make this a better place to live.

Q) What is something you should never do?

A) You should never steal someone’s bread.

Thanks.

View the original story on Quora.

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Oh man! I never knew that the railways cut the salaries of workers to compensate for lost stuff! This is really unfair, to be honest. There should be a public fund that should be collected from tickets and any lost items should be bought with that money. If it is us public making the mistakes, then we should be liable to pay, not the workers. They already have meagre salaries, and working in railways is really stressful! Who would bring the change? Us? Government? It is a question we have to ask ourselves.

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