Virtue

She was in a yellow printed shalwar kameez, half sleeves and fitted shirt. Pretty I must say, slightly wavy hair adorned nicely and her specs suited her well. She stepped in, in the same display center I was with my mom. She wasn’t more than eighteen I think, maybe younger. After almost an hour drive and an hour more looking for a proper dressing table we would like to have in those different display centers, her presence was a charm, soothing but than…

…she spoke.

Her words and her prick tone, and she was talking to a salesman who was atleast 55 plus. Probably older than her father, Okay I understand ‘He’ was a salesman & thus polite to his customer (she) – but still. All the appeal I felt moments ago faded away in ashes. All her beauty suddenly only became her quality of defect. Alexander Pope rightly said “Charm strike the sight, but merit wins the soul” the charm could not hold more than few minutes.

Virtue is what I thought about intensely. Why my longing eyes could hardly find it? My ears thirst to hear good fruitful words? Why do I seldom see a selfless smile? Where is the Honor? Respect? Virtue? It is indeed “Harder to be got than the knowledge of the world; and , if lost in a young man, seldom recovered” like John Locke expressed in his thoughts concerning education.