Once inside the train and my seat, I reflected upon the whole issue. I realised that I reacted in a manner so unnatural to my persona. I don’t get easily boiled. Then what had happened? Certainly the last two days had been quite annoying. First, it was the adamant foreman in the welding shop of (one of our very important customer) who would not budge from his observation that we had supplied a defective lot of welding electrodes in spite of the fact that samples taken at random from the lot were all found satisfactory. He would however, not agree to use them for the job in hand which in his opinion was very critical.

It was a Saturday and we all agreed to meet on Monday and resolve the issue to the satisfaction of all concerned. Hardly had I reached the hotel around 8 pm that there was a call from Jabalpur and asked me to rush to Jabalpur to attend an urgent meeting fixed with the officials of another very important customer in the afternoon on Monday. I explained the situation to the person calling but he too was as adamant as the foreman. I asked the technical person with me to stay and attend the job at Bhopal on Monday and resolve it.

The train was at about 11pm. I reached the station, fuming and worrying if I would get a proper berth. As luck would have it there was no berth available in any class. I tried to plead the conductor but he expressed his helplessness. With little more persuasion, he asked me to take his seat while he tried to see if there was any cancellation, which was not there to be. The whole night was spent on the hard seat of the third sleeper class, eyes heavy with sleep, body dull and aching, mind agitated over the type of job I was in (sales) and then this fellow of a policeman pushes me from behind spilling the hot tea all over my chest and hands and walks along least caring to say even a word of sorry. On top of it, the train was running late by three hours.

Could I have reacted in any other way? What if the tea would have actually fallen on the uniform of the policeman? Then he would have taken me in for questioning. What if the policeman was in genuine haste chasing some criminal? In any case this was only an accident and the policemen did not do anything intentionally. What if, still, he could have said sorry? Was it all because I was already full with anger and all those pent up feelings had to find some outlet?

It reminds me of a recent mail which says, “Accidentally a kid spills the milk on her father's office shirt, how he scolds her, how she starts crying, how he looks for a fresh shirt, how the school bus leaves without the kid, how the father has to drop the kid in school, how he has to over speed to make up the time both for school and office and how he rams the car into a tree.”

It happens with us all the time. The moment we are out on the street on way to our work. Someone has parked his car right in front of my garage, the guys overtake you from the wrong side, the road is clogged and traffic in not moving, the cyclist, scooterists follow no traffic rules and so on. There are hundreds of temptations to get angry. It may be home, office, theatre or any public place. Once you become a victim of such temptations, there is no limit to what extent it may go. Anger at home or on the street may find expression in the office or the other way round.

The question therefore is, how to control anger? You certainly can’t control the triggers. You can only control yourself from getting angry. This is in your hands. Our religious and spiritual teachers have explained the various techniques of meditation which helps to our mind and thereby the anger. With constant practice, it is possible to be calm and peaceful in the face of conflicts of modern day life.

Once I was returning from office with a friend of mine. At some place on the way, a speeding car passed us from the wrong side brushing the car we were travelling in. A few meters away, the car was waiting at the signal. My friend stopped just besides him. Got down and moved towards the driver. It was a treat to see the driver's face. He was expecting some sort of rebuke if not fight. My friend very politely asked him if he was okay and if his car was not damaged much. The driver was spellbound, could not say a word except some apologising sounds. The light turned green and he went on his way and we went our way laughing all the way. I asked my friend how could he control his anger. His answer was typical of him. He said, "Every morning I promise to myself that I will not get angry come what may and if such situation arises, I simply ask myself did I make any promise today."

I got my answer.