Namaskaar, How are you friends.
This week we will discuss about an interesting social experiment
which attempts to study human behavior
A question before we start the story
Are you passionate about any art form.
Dance music or painting ?
If yes you would be pursuing this everywhere
and when you experience this you would be ecstatic.
let us know what your passion is, in comments below
we will come back to this later in the video
 
The story starts on a busy friday morning
in a metro station in Washington DC @7:51AM
it was rush hour when many executives are leaving for work
 
There are some restaurants , Lottery shops and other shopping outlets in the vicinity
 
Then comes a man with a case in his hand
placed the case in a corner
Took out a violin, places some change in empty case and started playing
 
But he was no homeless man and for the next 43 mins played 6 classical music pieces
 
very few people stopped during the course of this
 
some spared change, some few dollars and kept moving ahead
 
By the end of the performance the violinist earned about 32$
 
The musician was Joshua Bell
A child prodigy and now a world famous violinist, considered one of the best
 
so what hapened in that metro station ?
That was an experiment by Washington post, that would we notice beauty if we are not looking for it ?
 
If a street performer plays world class music, would people notice him ? if they do what will happen?
 
 
When The Post approached Joshua with the idea
 
He was very excited and has readily accepted
 
 
The Washington Post was all ready for any mishap
 
But nothing of that sort happened
Just one woman noticed Joshua and spoke to him afterwards
 
 
No one recognized him apart from her
 
Joshua was going to use his 300 year old violin for this performance
 
This violin was stolen twice before
the estimated cost of violin was 3.5 Million dollars
Joshua performed in boston 3 days before the subway experiment
 
where the ticket was sold at 100$ per head
when Joshua was asked about the subway experiment
he said "the silence which followed the completion of each piece was heart breaking"
 
The musician who is accustomed to standing ovation
in metro station sometimes did not even get change
he continued "when i am performing someplace else, i would be upset when someone coughs or when someones phone rings"
 
 
here i was happy whenever someone gave a dollar instead of loose change
 
When Joshua, a world famous violinist using his 300 year old, 3.5 million dollar violin
 
was playing best recorded pieces in history
he earned $32.17
1097 people passed him that day
only 27 ended up giving money
we have place the link of actual footage from this video in the comments
The interesting fact about this experiment though was that
whenever a child passed Joshua
he would look at Joshua and tried to stay
but every single time he was scooted away by his parent
 
Very few adults actually stopped and watched the performance
 
So what was your answer when i earlier asked about your passion
What was it that the kids had which we as adults seem to have completely lost ?
What are we running behind ?
Would you have stopped if you were in that metro station ?
 
Do we know the value of things when there is no price tag attached ?
 
Do we notice beauty all aruond us in our busy daily lives ?
 
And finally and most importantly what would you do/change going forward
 
 
90% of the people that crossed Joshua that day were on their way to work
 
Did we forget to smile in the race of life ?
 
Do not loose life in exchange for earning bread
Today is International Labour day, a day to remember our rights
 
HAPPY LABOUR DAY :)
