Don't Judge the book by its cover

Today I got up little late and got the later bus than usual. I came to the train station around 7:35 and I was waiting for my shuttle bus to pick me up.

It’s a cloudy today and the ground was wet from last night’s rain. There was a gentle breeze in the air. It looked like a lazy day as most of them started work early because of the summer hours.

My shuttle bus came sharp on time and it was James, the driver for the past 10 months. He talks to me very well. We sometimes go to drink coffee together. I wished him good morning and sat in the bus. Normally my brother would be calling me at this hour or I would be talking to my parents, so I wouldn’t have much time to talk to anyone in the bus. Today its one of those rare days that I am not on phone and I am fresh to talk. I guess it’s probably because of the Dunkin’s coffee.

Moving on, Barb was the only other person in the bus. She was reading the news about the woman who alleged kidnapping of herself and her daughter by a black man. The news turned out to be a hoax. Barb was upset about the subtle racism in stereotyping black people. She wants to vent it out and there I am. So we were talking about our culture, family, racial divide and so on. Anyway barb got down in the D building, so I went to the front seat to talk to James as I felt it would be rude to stay in the back seat and not talk to him.

I said “nice day isn’t James? ‘Pretty nice kanna’, James replied.

He is one of the few guys who can pronounce my name like a tamilian.

‘These people are rarely trustworthy’, he continued. ‘People judge you all the time but Barb’s not like that’, he looked at me as if I had to approve something.
I said ‘I agree with you about Barb’ and smiled.

He smiled back and went on ‘Kanna, you are a smart man. Looking at you, I can tell you are a good guy and you don’t bull shit to me’. ‘Many guys look down upon me because I am a driver and bullshit to me’.

I was little surprised for one reason, I sincerely believe it is rude to assume someone is ignorant because of his profession. Why? I think so, because of my upbringing I guess. I have heard stories of chandalan’s rhetoric with adi shankara when I was a kid and innumerable other stories from my Periappa that insisted on the importance of knowledge and not the source of it. I know my Periappa is extremely knowledgeable and knows more than a learned professor of philosophy, yet he doesn’t have a college degree. Therefore I think so…

Enough digressing, although I knew the world judged people according to their color, degree, school they studied, the locality they reside and many other factors, I felt bad for James even though I personally don’t care a shit about these things in my daily life.

I thought I wanted to cheer him up; I also felt compelled not to falsely praise someone, so I told him ‘You are a reasonable person mate. You have seen world and you know better’.
He looked at me and gave a smile. ‘Damn me, couldn’t I come up with something better than that?’

I was relieved when James opened his mouth ‘Thanks Man’, ‘You are a good guy’, and he repeated it.

He turned his attention towards the road and started talking, ‘I have seen more presidents than these guys would ever dream of’ referring to the Americans.
‘I have assassinated more people than they ever think of’, he said. ‘I could kill a person with my bare hands and could kill them before they could react’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

He continued, ‘Jimmy carter personally gave me a medal for supporting the operations’.
‘How was that? What Operations?’ I asked

‘I am a student of military science’, he looked at me and gave a smile again. I wanted to clarify what I just heard,’ MILITARY SCIENCE, you said’

‘Yes, I was a Special Forces commando’, ‘I was trained by the Israelis and I fought in four wars for my country’ and he looked at me with a pride in his eyes, ‘and for other countries too’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I simply couldn’t control my curiosity. At this time the bus reached my building. I wanted to get down but I couldn’t leave the conversation in the middle so I continued

‘The Israelis, are they good?’
‘They are the BEST maan’, he said without the wink of the eye. ‘Why do these people always tag with them where ever they go’, ‘they have plenty to learn from them’, referring to Americans.

‘Hmm, interesting, so James how did you get here?’
‘I did some job for the CIA and it didn’t go well in one country and I was sentenced to death in that country, so I had to flee’, he said
‘Ten years and I haven’t gone to my country back, the CIA wants me to join them or do some police work, told them I just want to be private citizen so they had to change my identity to protect me’

He continued, ‘ See man, I have see death since I was 12 years old, look at these bullet marks’, he rolled down his sleeves to show bullet marks in his hands, his chest, shoulder and lifts his pants to show bullet marks in his legs.

‘I care a shit about death or anyone in this world including me when I was in Africa’, ‘now it’s not the case, I have a 2 year old daughter’ he said.

I wanted to continue more on the conversation with him. I had more questions for him but I was already late to work, ‘We have to sit and have a nice conversation sometime, may be you could tell me all your war stories, yeah?’ I asked
‘Anytime with you brother’, he said. ‘I normally don’t tell these things but to you I am OK’.

My belief on not to judge someone by their looks just got proved right away. I didn’t expect this Zen moment in the morning today.

[P.S – BTW, the ‘ITALIAN JOB’ movie dialog ‘I trust you and not the devil in you’ is lifted from African folk lore. James hasn’t seen the movie and he kept using the same dialog. When I asked where he heard about it. He told me that it’s an African saying.

- Also, I am going to give him some CD’s of African depiction of war. I will ask him how much of it is true and I will interview him more and will post it.]