Such is the Human Story

Sometimes you don’t have to hunt for stories to write about. They are waiting for you, at the right moment and place. That’s why one has to develop the tendency of observing life minutely because a story could be coming the very next minute.

I have in the past helped the needy in whatever way that I could. On one such dull morning, many moons ago, during my art school days, I ventured out of the house to get some materials for a campaign that I was working on. In the crowded marketplace, I met this fragile old guy probably in his late 60s. He was wearing a white cotton sadra and pyjamas, was barefoot and limping. I could see a dressing bandage on one of his feet; the wound looked fresh and bloodied. I would have ignored him but he asked, in Gujarati, if I could escort him to the foot-over bridge, to crossover to the other side of the suburb. Since it was just a few furlongs away, I held his hand and started the walk to our destination. When I looked at him carefully, reality struck me hard – he was blind. On further probing, I found he had hurt himself while walking and a good Samaritan had paid for the medical bill. I asked him where his family was and he replied he was alone in this world and there was nobody to care for him. And what about food? He said, if he was lucky, he would get some wheat which he would crush and make some chappatis for himself. I was on the verge of breaking down completely. Just then we arrived at our point and I left him there, bidding goodbye. Knowing his condition too well now, he must have asked for help even to climb the bridge. While I took my way back home, trying to forget what I had lived a while ago.

Today, once again, a story was waiting for me outside the station not very far from where I left the old man a decade ago. I met a 20 something needy boy asking for my assistance. He spoke chaste Gujarati and was standing with the support of a stick imaginably of some injury to his leg. He was drenched in his sweat and it was dripping from his face. He had to go someplace but had no money to spare for the travel. Before he could start explaining to me about his ordeal, I cut him short abruptly and made my way back to home.

I realized later that I should’ve helped him get to his destination just like I did to that old man. I could have handed him some money, nothing would have gone waste. But I decided to act like a true blue Mumbaikar, always wary of strangers (especially the younger lot) who could be migrants waiting to slit your throat. If you happen to travel by the suburban locals, which I do everyday, you would see the abject poverty that adorns the streets, the shanties in which people live, in the most inhuman conditions ever known to mankind. It’s a moving experience indeed. The high-rises verging on them, look like they are provoking; giant Goliaths who are waiting to usurp the beggarly and the destitute. I am sorry for turning my back on a poor soul who needed me the most at the most difficult hour of his life. I am quite certain that, a really good Samaritan, like the scores that walk the streets of Mumbai when she needs them the most, must have held his hand and walked him to his destiny.

I am hopeful that he would be back with his family and in safer hands, thanks to that helping hand. I pray to god that he has a good meal and some sleep too. So when he wakes up in the morning he doesn’t have any malevolence about a guy who turned his back and left him alone to face the cruel world.