'Dont judge a book by its cover'

To reach my uncle's house in chennai, we have to follow a narrow road which has slums on its one side and temple, shops etc on the other side. And in between these there are wider roads that will take you to apartment blocks. I do pass through this road whenever i walk down to my bus stop. And the sight of the slums was not exactly very pleasant for me. I even wonder how people live in those tough conditions, in such tiny space. And it looks all crammed, and so i try not to look that direction as i walk.

For some personal reasons, i wanted to meet an old brahmin couple and one of my uncle's acquaintances helped us in finding this couple. It so happened that they stayed in the slum.
A set of houses in the slum had a common gate. As i walked through the gate i was totally surprised by what i was experiencing. I had expected to experience bad odour, dirty lanes, dirty water flowing etc.But what i found was neat lanes, nice agarbathi or smell of cooking food. I mean when u actualy look the houses had bad and broken floors and walls with paint peeling off..We reached this old couple's home and i must say, they have kept the house so clean inspite of all the short comings of their living environment.

There was one cot with no bed on it. 3-4 plastic chairs, buckets and a shelf with god's pictures and another room where i guess they hanged clothes. There was nothing like a kitchen or bathroom- or rather i guess i didnt see these from where i was sitting. But the neat and tidy house actualy give u a very warm feeling to heart.

I am almost into 600 pages of 'Shantaram' by Gregory David Roberts and there is a section in the story describing his life in the slum and it seemed like i was experiencing something directly from what was written in the book.....

The thaata(old brahmin grandpa) and the patti(grandmom) were there. The taatha was has lost one of his legs and he hardly speaks. But the paatti had a wide smile and she talks a lot. They offered nice warm tea and was very happy that we visited them. We took leave after a while.

It was a very pleasant experience and one that opened my eyes to see the 'world of people in slums' through a different angle.

'Dont judge a book by its cover'