Courtesy

Week before last, I was at the bank. The lady behind the counter was a fabulous person; always smiling and really helpful. Next to me at the counter was another woman who was there to transfer money to her relatives in a neighboring district. She was the typical villager who worked in the field all day, and she was roughly in her late 40's.

Since she didn't know the details of the account fully, she was facing trouble completing her work. But of course, the banker woman, being the helpful soul she was made this woman's life easy by going out of her way to arrange for information that she could have very well dismissed as being beyond the scope of her job. The two women spoke in pahadi (the local dialect of the hills). After a couple of minutes of going back and forth, the task at hand was finished. I stood there watching as the villager woman handed the currency notes to the banker lady. And just she was about to walk away, the villager stopped and looked at the banker and said : Thank you. I was stunned. So was the banker across the counter. She asked her customer to repeat what she said. And smiling, with her lips concealing her teeth, she repeated: Thank you.

Courtesy doesn't demand much time. It is something as small as a Thank you to someone who doesn't expect to be thanked. If a woman with nil education knows this, it is embarrassing for us who hold fancy degrees to somehow think that we are above all of this. Do I say I was touched by the woman's act? Yes. But I learned a valuable lesson that day - Be courteous even to strangers.