The other side of life

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You'll never know what you'll get." The same way one always fails to be impressed by his treasures till they slip away right under their noses. A call of enlightenment was issued to me. The means it got to me????
YRC notice board!!!! I was one of the few who were enlisted to go on an orphanage visit. It was just one of those YRC camps was what I first thought of it as. I was asked to come to college on a saturdaymorning which was clammy and cold. That too at 7 30. We had to load rations, water and stuff into the bus. Then we got in and the bus started. It was a long ride to the orphanage and a lot of events happened on the way there aboard the bus but those are not worth mentioning in the present context. It might also be construed as my laziness to type!!

Then we ended up at the orphanage which was as secluded as a single hair on a bald guy's head. The camp director asked us to play witht he kids and clean up the place. Me and my pal were totally pissed off hearing that. But we kept our thoughts to ourselves. We were split into batches and our batch was asked to do the hard work. There was this huge mound of who knows what. and the other side of it was shallow. It sounded simple. We had to level the place. It would have been easier if we had been given an automated hauler and a road roller but instead we were given two crowbars and a few shovels. Crawling everywhere were ants(giant ones), bugs of every imaginable kind, Kambli poochi(what's that in english?), pooran(again???) and heaps of weeds which were waiting to be weeded.

They say hard work pays. It did. After an hour of work we smiled at the work we had done. Half the area was as even as even could be. The next batch took over our job and we were left to the presumably easier job of playing with the orphaned kids. When I looked at them, I felt how horrible a person can be. How did they ever have the heart to give away such kids? But viewing it from another perspective, I realised how much better off these kids were here than they could have been with their parents. They were well taken care of. They were allowed to play all they wanted, watch movies, and what not. One guy actually flew. Let me explain that. There is this merry go round over there. The kids just sat down on allt he seats. And asked me to push it. I gave an almighty shove(:)). It spiraled around like a whirlwind. This guy stood up and caught hold of the bars. Due to the centrifugal force that was acting away fromt he centre, as he lifted his legs, they just flew up and he was almost flying. But then he flew totally because his hand slipped and fell down in a heap on the ground. To all of our amazement he just got up , brushed the dirt off, grinned like a four year old who just got a lollipop(he might have been a four year old for all i know!!) and once again started the routine!!
After some time the time for departure came. What started out to be a major pain actually turned out to be a delightful experience. Not entirely delightful because I'd always prefer waking up late and reading a comic to toiling in the mud with creepy crawlies. Nevertheless..............

Then as usual the camp ended with R&R at monkey falls. Reaching PSG tech at 7 30, I looked back to the start of the day. It was not a waste of time after all. I got to cut the programming lab class anyway. As soon as i landed at the college I rushed to RS Puram. The day ended well with a sumptuous treat given by my friend meera on the occasion of her birthday. All is well that ends well they say!!

Life rocks.