Losing Innocence

It’s sad, but the truth, probably a part of the exercise called ‘growing up’. But are they the same, losing innocence and growing up, should they mean the same things??

I don’t know. Frankly, they should not, but practically, I feel they are the same things. I mean, it would have been great if we could keep the innocence throughout, but then fr that I guess you need a near perfect world. As we grow up and start facing the world on our own, we pretty much are always on guard against someone who can take advantage of us or can fool us. Isnt a good feeling not to trust anyone, but then, we have been hurt by a number of people who had lost their innocence sometime, somewhere and have hurt us.

I felt like writing this piece after I read a blog where my blogger friend talks about her friend helping a little beggar girl. The girl has to take back a certain amount to her master at the end of the day. And seems, someone did a one-upmanship on the little girl and stole her earnings for the day. My blogger friends’ friend and a few other kind hearted people accumulated the money and gave it to the beggar girl.
Good people!! I just hope they don’t meet this girl again.

Me and Patna, my roommate who claimed he was from the historical city, reached the Old Delhi Railway Station early in the morning. A 5 hr bus ride from Roorkee to Delhi was always tiring, more so because I can’t sleep on buses. Patna was to catch a train to his home town and I was to coming to Kolkata. After having a cup of tea at the station so that we could appreciate the surroundings, we decided to move around the station rather than sit at some place. Our legs were already cramped and needed some sort of exercise. As we strolled, a guy in nice clothes came up to us and said in English “I need to go back to my home town and I have lost all money on my way to Delhi. Could you be an altruist and give me 10 rupees please?” Both of us were shocked, not by the situation, but by his language. I mean we were studying for GRE and CAT, but didn’t really know where to use the word ‘altruist’ properly. I was about to ask him if he is also studying for the same exams or if he is English Hons or something, but before I could say anything, Patna handed him a 10 rupee note. 10 bucks were not easy, specially when you are in college, but that was Patna, foolish, emotional and helpful. He thanked Patna profusely for that and left. We discussed about the altruist stuff for sometime and kept our eyes out for the beauties that come by rarely in Indian railway stations.

About an hour after that, we had wandered to a different section of the railway station, when we saw the same guy coming towards us again. I think both me and Patna smiled at him when we saw him. He came up to us and said “I need to go back to my home town and I have lost all money on my way to Delhi. Could you be an altruist and give me 10 rupees please?” Of course, we had recognized him, but he had forgotten us. We were shocked, completely speechless. I was the first one to open my mouth, and I shouted at him. You bastard, cheat and I was on my way to a few more of them, when he called in his friends and I found that we had been surrounded. They threatened us to keep quiet and get out of there which we promptly did. Patna had a big lump in his throat and he found it difficult to talk even after 5 minutes.

I guess Patna lost his innocence that day. I mean, yeah you can say he grew up, cause I never saw him entertain beggars or give money to people after that.