He is Sitaram, the caretaker at Kothi No.2, where I stay whenever I am in Morena. You ask him his age and he has no clear answer but is easily over 60. He has been working for the owner family ever since he was fit to take up a job and has spent a lifetime at this station.
What marks him out is his humility and readiness to take care of your needs. He has perhaps never tasted coffee but merely observed me making the south Indian kapi and the next day he had it ready for me! (I am still trying to seduce him to taste my concoction!) We also have great conversations, with each of us using something sounding like Hindi that is totally beyond the comprehension of the other!
He would normally walk up to my room on the first floor countless number of times, once to get the glass, then to get the milk and once again to get the sugar! One might be tempted to scream at him for his inefficiency but you would be heartless to find fault with him. You cannot escape his disarming smile glamourised by the almost totally missing frontal dentures! .
Yet, I mustered courage to ask him why he did not plan his work instead of punishing himself.. And, there he was in tears… moved by my question… by the fact that I was caring for him and actually suggesting a way to enhance his comfort. .. he said “Sir, I am touched that you have thought of my comfort…that you had the time in your busy schedule to think about me…I bless you from the deepest corner of my heart…Bhagwan aapko sukhi rakhenge”
And that was a turning point in my life… that simplicity and the joy on the old man’s face suddenly brought me an awakening unclouded by the technical jargon …there I found my mission in the moist eyes of that old man.... to do every thing possible to provide happiness and comfort to every person associated with the company, whatever be his position in the work environment – whether he is the guard or the gardener or a vice president…
The beauty in this is that such an approach does not always demand a dispensation in terms of money! Often a smile is all that is required.. a smile that shows your recognition of the other person as a fellow human being.. a nod that indicates how you appreciate the other person’s contribution, however miniscule it may be, to making your life a better one. Of course, the effort has to be genuine and actively seek to enrich the other person’s life. Is this what a typical HR honcho would call “employee satisfaction”, “motivation”, etc?
The guest author is a Mumbai based corporate manager for over 35 years and human beings interest him the most.
courtesy: ScratchMySoul.com
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