Lessons learnt from a Mango Seller

I was on holiday in Coorg recently.

On the long six-hour trip to our resort, we saw a whole bunch of fruit sellers in a line on the highway:

As we slowed down to take a picture, a very young-looking boy (whom we later figured out was still in high school) ran up to us to sell us some mangoes.

We took four kilos of some arcane variety of mango. Then, as is the custom, we began haggling to get the price down from Rs.500 to Rs.400 (a difference of approximately $2.50). At this point, the mango boy said - "Please don't haggle. If you people don't give, then who else will?". 

It touched us somewhere inside. It didn't even matter that the mangoes were of poor quality. He was right: who else would pay for his food and education? If we could shell out a couple of bucks for a lousy coffee at some hip restaurant, why were we so stingy with the same cash even when it came to helping somebody out?

We paid. We even stopped on the way back and paid some more. And it felt good.

~ Advait