"If I was asked to wipe tables I would ensure that I was the best table wiper around"

This is what someone who I used to report to at one point and have a high regard for, told me once. To the same effect, yesterday, I read a really beautiful and inspiring story written by Satyajit Ray.

The story is about a man in his early fifties who many years back used to be an active stage actor and was really good at it. But he had given up acting long back when he moved to Calcutta in search for a better job. He had eventually lost the job and ever since has had it tough to make ends meet.

One day suddenly his friend gives him an offer to act as a walk on in a commercial film which has a famous director and a very famous actor. The role is of a person who the hero of the film bumps into and then walks away. He is told that the role does have spoken lines. Excited at this prospect he tells his wife about how he began his stage career acting as a dead body on stage and this role might bring about a similar change in his life.

The next day he shows up on the film set and finds out that his spoken line is ‘oh!’ He is very disappointed and irritated that the role is just one word, in fact it is not even a word it is just a sound. Unsettled he stands in the shade in one corner waiting for his shot to come. He is really unhappy but then the words of his mentor, when he was a stage actor, come to him. He remembers in reverence how his mentor used to say that no part is small and it is one's responsibility to make the most of every opportunity. He then starts thinking about ‘oh!’ and quickly realizes that there are many different shades to say 'oh!'. Standing there he calculates how different emotions can be mixed to come up with different ways to say ‘oh!’ He figures out his ‘oh!’ requires 60 parts of irritation and 40 parts of surprise.

When his shot comes along he even musters up courage to suggest to the director that in the scene maybe he should be reading a newspaper while he bumps into the actor. He is given a newspaper and the shooting starts. He does his best as he bumps into the hero harder than he had anticipated and manages to exclaim ‘oh!’ with 50 parts of anguish and 25 parts of surprise and irritation each. And just like that his work is done. He is asked to go wait in the tea stall for his payment.

At the tea stall he sits contently and has a sense of deep satisfaction. He knows people on the film set would not appreciate or even understand the effort he had put in and then he thinks about how much his payment would be 10, 15 or maybe even 20 rupees. Even though he needs the money badly, at that moment a thought strikes him 'what is twenty rupees when measured against the intense satisfaction of a small job done with perfection and dedication?'

The end of the story is that someone from the film set comes to the tea stall to hand over the payment and finds that this person is gone…

The story gives the same message as what someone put to me in a different form that no matter how insignificant you feel something on your hand is, always strive to put in your all and do your outmost best.

The story is really simple but I think it is a masterpiece and I really loved the story and also the way it is written. It is so simple yet capable of having such a huge impact on our attitude in life, whether it is in our work or in our personal lives…