Unpaid Debts

I have always hated favours.I hate favors because I feel like I am under some debt ,and until I pay it off I am inferior to that person . So I normally don’t accept them or return the favors in one way or the other. What I didn’t understand was that some favors are so selfless and unconditional that they cannot be paid off. You just have to live with the debt of someone’s kindness and be grateful for it. I learned that when I was about to be struck by a car in an unknown city with a blue suitcase in my hand.

It was the day I was returning home with my friend from hostel .We walked a mile, then got onto the congested public van irritating everyone aboard and then got off at the wrong point at the bus stop. We were a road across from our point of departure. Crossing the road is something I am absolutely not good at and cherry on top I had to carry my suitcase that was nearly half my body weight. The best I could do was following the lead of a man crossing the road. Nonetheless, I panicked mid road and the wheels of the carry on turned in some horrible direction and I was stuck in the middle of the road bustling with cars. I blurted, rather loudly,:” Oh God! I am gonna die today.” And he heard me. He turned, took my suitcase and I showed absolutely no resistance .He slowly started crossing the road so that we could catch up to him.

And as I was thinking, that’s it , he helped us enough now we should part ways ,he could be a fraud and ask money for his services (which I obviously didn’t have) or sedate and kidnap us or run away with my luggage that carried my precious Eid shopping ,he asked us where we were going.

And I told him the truth , partly because I still couldn’t figure out where we had to go and also because I was respectful and couldn’t put him in his place. And just like that ,no further questions asked he continued to lead us to our destination and insisted to stay until our bus came . The fears persisted too so we both did what we thought was best.Me walking as close to him as possible so that he might not run away with our stuff and my friend reciting all the prayers she could possibly remember for our safety .In the end , we were proved wrong.The guy even helped us secure our seats and load our luggage onto the bus and waited to see us off.

He made me realize that the society that we live in, people being helpful is terrifying. Our thoughts are plagued that we cannot appreciate kindness without being skeptical. Fears had occupied me so much that I didn’t even ask for his name. I did thank him but not thank him enough. He didn’t ask for our names or our ethnicity or why we were stupid enough to travel alone when we didn’t know our way around ,he saw us struggling and simply decided to spare his time to help us . He had nothing to gain from it yet he decided to do it . .Initially I wished that I might meet him sometime in the future and be some kind of help to him but I realized that I would be helping him in return of his help . The moment I step foot on that bus I knew that I could never return his selfless favor , I will be forever in debt.