will and skill

  Whatever be the summer temperatures, we are blessed with pleasing mornings and cool evenings. Just,  I had to be earlier than the sun. Indian summers are not warm, at 40 degrees plus they are hot. I found the early mornings the best time to be out when the ambient light paints the wide canvas with different colours and with varied strokes, awakening the life on the mother earth. Its bliss to walk amidst these ever changing canvases and listen to the tireless chirps. With hardly any man made disturbance, I could savour the flavour of each and every ingredient of one of the most delicious menu on the card.
  There was only one shopkeeper who could beat me in time and was up early in the morning. He was the only person who opened the shutters and began his work. He is a tailor by profession and has a contagious smile on his face. His sparkling eyes, looked more brighter against his sunburned dark complexion. He had lost one leg to polio and used a crutch  to cary himself. He is from a distant land where the markets were to dull and shy to honour his skill as a tailor. In India, he would have earned the same money, may be on a traffic red light, or in font of the temple and gained sympathy and pity of the donors. I admire him for his courage to have that self respect to live a dignified life. He is the best in town in this small portion of the world, thats why he has to be up early in the morning to meet the deadlines. I can tell you, its not easy for a physically handicapped person  to stay away from his family and work day in and day out, not only to meet his needs but also he was funding his siblings back home. I found inspiration in him. At times when I walked past him buried in my thoughts, he would make a point to wish me good morning. His ever smiling face and his lively eyes would say a million words and all those things which were crowding in my mind would collapse.Certainly he has a determined will and a skill for a respectable life and its not the nature of the job, but how well you do it.
I wish he becomes an inspiration to all those who keep on blaming one and all, cursing the stars and get depressed doing nothing. Wish they hone up their skills and have a will to do it.