My (very limited) experiences with corruption

Because I am in that kind of mood today, where I remember every wrong thing that the "system" forced me to do...

There was a time I paid Rs.50 to the post man, as a bribe, because he wouldn't give me the registered post, I knew it contained my sister's passport, he wanted her to take it personally and sign... I had a authorization letter from her, he wouldn't listen, all because he wants to harass...

I felt nasty... My friend laughed at me, he said Rs.50 was too much, Rs.5 would have been enough...

That postman went away with a leer... He sang a song to me while I walked on the road later... He knew he was the king of the moment...

That situation really had an impact on me, it was my first personal brush with the 'baddies' of the world.

That is when I realised, that I can't control every situation in life.. He chooses to be corrupt, I can't help it. There is no time to file an official police complaint, I can't really drag him to court, I need the post urgently. So I decide to give in.

But it's okay, I can limit the influence of such people in my life.

Out of that frustration, I realised how lucky I was.

Thank God my father is not that kind of person, thank God I wasn't fed & raised on such money!

Thank God my mom taught me self-respect... Thank God for all this... And I can make a choice to be friends with like minded people. I can choose not to have that post-man kind of character in my real life... I can choose my life partner... So that there is no corruption or lack of ethics at least in my personal life.

I can tolerate all the baddies from a safe distance, say hi, say bye, give in to them sometimes when I have some urgent work. But I can't be friends, I can't admire them, I can't be like that, I can't bend. I won't do it personally, I will resist it whenever I am in authority, whenever I have the choice.

And I won't let my temper flare up because of one post-man, at least he needs the money, and has the excuse of being illiterate. At least he's not swindling millions, he just engages in small time corruption to feed his family. His like-minded educated brothers & sisters play the same game, with hundreds thousands, and millions, probably because they learnt how to count larger numbers at school...

At least this situation showed his money-mindedness in this external world, but there are lots of unethical money-minded people who torture their own families to extract money, at least Mr.Postman did it for his kids!

But I pray for him always, I hope my Rs.50 note brought something positive into his life and changed him for the better.

Life is long, and we come across a lot of such situations... Try to purchase real estate, the dealer demands money in black even if we're ready to pay in white.. It is impossible to live the Gandhian way of non-cooperation, that will only make us live house-less ;-) These kind of things used to bug me earlier... Now I know, that I should try my best, and I can make the right choices within my personal reach, what lies beyond is left to God, and I know that out there in the beyond, swim lots of souls just as nice (and in fact much nicer, the nicest ones are silent) than me!