Geetha Durairajan I was coming back to Hyderabad from a seminar and I had booked a call taxi to pick me up at the airport. I saw the missed calls from the driver and took the call as soon as I landed. The taxi driver’s voice was slurred and a little unclear! I immediately assumed the worst! I told myself: “Gosh! It is late in the evening and I am in trouble! Either this must be a very old man, or he must be drunk or must be a chewer of tobacco or paan.” I resigned myself to my fate, sent up a few prayers and told myself: “Let me hope and pray I don’t have problems on the way and that I get home in one piece!” All this without even having met the poor man! With these thoughts I walked out of the airport and reached the place where the driver could pick me up. When I met him I realized how wrong I had been in my judgment and felt terrible and full of remorse. Luckily, I had not said a word to the driver except to tell him that I would meet him at a particular point, and that I was wearing a sari, and had two suitcases (to help identify me). All my ‘hope I reach home in one piece’ had remained a dialogue with myself. My driver was a healthy robust man in his late 40s, very considerate and helpful. When I reached my flat (I live on the first floor and there is no lift) he even carried my two suitcases up the flight of stairs and then left with a smile for the tip I gave him for being helpful. His slur, or rather, slightly inarticulate speech was because he had a cleft palate. He could not articulate certain sounds properly, that was all! The man was neither old, nor drunk, nor addicted to paan! Why had I assumed the worst? Why do we work with suspicion first and then move to trust? Does it change depending on whether we know the person? All these thoughts kept going through my mind and I felt more and more miserable about the huge error in judgment! According to law even a criminal is innocent until proved guilty and that too, beyond reasonable doubt! But I realized that this kind of acceptance of ‘innocence’ seems to be applied only to our relatives and friends. We do not give the benefit