Monday, January 10, 2011

“A little piece of Soap……”

I checked into the Guesthouse and instinctively inspected the room as per my checklist. I am not really fussy about the décor of the room whenever I travel for work – but hygiene and cleanliness is non-negotiable. While checking the bathroom, I saw a small pack of soap but also noticed, a piece of a used soap – little irritated, I just threw it away. Getting ready never takes more than 15 minutes for me ….. soon I was out of the Guest House waiting for the car to pick me up …….

While I was waiting outside the Guest House, I saw what you can see on any road in many Indian cities ….. there was a small row of ramshackle shanties. In front of one of them, a lady was bathing her child. The child was giggling as if it was enjoying a royal bath …. Well it was I guess more his mother’s touch that made it special than a half-filled aluminum bucket or a small piece of soap! May be its not decent to stare at someone’s daily chores like that but somehow I just couldn’t take my eyes off the scene. Once the bath was over, the lady scrubbed her child with a dry piece of cloth, wrapped him in the same and kept him carefully in a dry place. Once she had taken care of the child, she picked up a stone nearby and unfolded a piece of crumpled butter-paper kept under the stone. With lot of care, she wiped the small piece of soap with her dry hands and wrapped it in the butter-paper as if it was a piece of some expensive jewel.

As I sat in the car and left the place something stirred in me ….. the small piece of used soap that I threw away back in the Guest House kept coming back to my mind …. I wondered … so what about that? ….. surely I was never going to use that and nothing wrong in what I did … what then?? …… A funny stream of thought came to my mind …. Both the soaps – the one which I threw away and the one which I saw ceremoniously used by the lady on footpath – must be neighbours on a rack in the shop. Our Guest House care-taker must have bought one and stuffed it in his bags carelessly, while the lady must have bought it after careful evaluation of her options ….. the Guest House soap was used for a day by someone and was now lying in a dustbin …. The other one will be a valuable piece for some more days …….. SO WHAT ???? …. what was troubling me?

….. And then it just struck me ….. soap is a soap is a soap – same/similar ingredients (sincere apology to all brands!) and same utility ….. one is bought as what marketers popularly call ‘low involvement purchase’ while the other is not. It is not so much about the end-use or ingredients or price, but it is more the context which makes all the difference. So for an argument sake, if the soap had mind of its own, the ‘Guest House soap’ must have felt nice being a part of an up-market set-up than the shanty where the other landed. The Guest House fellow always stayed in a nice soap-case whereas his poorer cousin in a crumpled butter-paper……. But as they lead their life, the one in the shanty is more valuable to someone and the one in the Guest House is just casually in thrown in the dustbin one day……….

Does it happen to us? When we choose careers, do we get attracted to the “better places” than really finding our context there ? Do we spare some thought about how valuable are we to the place ? This is not as simple as a small company Vs a big company ….. or a multinational Vs a local company …… that will be simply naïve …. What is more crucial is our ability to find our rightful place where we are cared for, valued and not tossed around!

….. The car was taking me to my destination faster than I thought …. Actually, I was visiting a college to address a group of students on “How to choose a right career and workplace?” …… I quietly folded and kept aside my notes …… I thought…. I perhaps had something better to share with them than my well-prepared notes……….