Patience

Note: The post has nothing to do with the Take That song. Nor do I intend to allude that my readers should have some patience before they find my next post.

I never believed in it and yet on a day when I was physically and mentally drained and too exhausted to even react, let alone vent my anger, I learnt the value of equanimity: the one that breaks adversaries and brings them down on their knees.

I live in an area which is close to the heart of the city and owing to the burgeoning traffic the road near my house had been considerably widened and finally converted into a wide road one way. Despite this there are innumerable bikers who drive onto the pedestrian sidewalk near the signal just to get ahead of the others and zoom past when the signal turns green. It has been making me irascible by the time I reached home almost on a daily basis, the irritation vented long after the cause was out of sight. Initially, I thought anger management techniques would help: I counted ten till my ears went red and the caricaturesque steam would come out of my ears, I tried nipping the vexation right at the bud by spewing expletives at the root cause of my irritation: the bikers, I tried to give myself feel-good factors to distract myself from the anger: singing songs while walking, eating a cake before walking back from the bus stop and even watching Seinfeld after going back home. But invariably that five minute walk back home managed to ruin the next five hours that I spent pacifying myself.

Yesterday as I stepped onto the sidewalk a truculent biker was weaving his way through pedestrians followed by his uncouth brethren on their respective vehicles. With an inexplicably calm disposition that overcame me, I stood my ground and refused to give way. Another colleague walking with me also stood by blocking his path completely. It was now the biker’s turn to be irritated, he gestured that I could squeeze through like the others and let him proceed. But I told him that I could stand waiting there forever till he got his motorcycle off the sidewalk. He thought that it was just an empty threat and a half pint of a girl like me wouldn’t last a second longer before his burly bike. I did not make an empty promise and continued to glower at him. It did not take longer than 20 seconds before his caravan of fellow bikers obediently move their steeds onto the lawful route after which they jibed him to follow suit. I waited with no seeming hurry or care in the world. The other pedestrians passed us by and coaxed us into letting go. He even began to plead but we did not budge nor did we sermonize him on what was a lawful place to drive: because everyone knows the law but few of us follow it. We persisted. Soon the traffic light turned green and he realized that it was he who was in a hurry not we. As he lowered his vehicle onto the road, my partner slapped me on the back and said victoriously, “We did it.”

Yes, some things get done by sheer persistence and patience: both of which I need to practice especially when dealing with people who are not at par with me but more on that later. At the moment the 50 seconds of patience and equanimity would probably keep me jubilant for another 50 hours. I wasn’t the one to advocate Gandhigiri (a clichéd term by now) in daily life and yet I inadvertently practiced it and won: not just against the biker but also my anger.