Delhi Diaries

   

     It was around 6:30 in the evening and I was moving swiftly towards the Metro station after a tiresome day at office. It was mine second day at Delhi, the National Capital and I was still calibrating myself to the tune of the mega polis. Funky metro trains, overcrowded roads, paan spewing rickshaw drivers, artificial looking girls in short skirts, chic shopping malls, beggars and a sea of people everywhere. All in all, a total contrast to mine Himalayan state . Here life seemed ten years ahead and twenty times faster. Hailing from such a silent state and having to live now in this city, I was in middle of a culture shock, right in my very own country.

So, I was about to enter the metro station  when a voice  addressed me as ‘Babu ji’ from behind.

He was  a middle aged man, most probably in his early forties, with uncombed hair, a uniformly thick moustache with a grey beard , a thin and a long face. He was wearing a checked shirt, untucked with dull black trousers.

Kya aapko hindi aati hai?  He asked

Ji , aati hai...kyuun?  i asked back

Babuji, hum Maharashtra ke  rehne  waale  hain, yahaan  ghoomne  aaye the par aaj subah hamaara saara samaan kho gaya, please kuchh help kar dijiye, waapis ghar jaana hai, saari family pareshaan hai..he said pointing towards two other ladies standing 2-3 steps away with full gloomy faces, maybe in a culture shock too, just like me ;)

Aap hamein apna address de dijiye, main waapis pahunchte hi aapke paise bhej duunga, but please abhi kuchh help kar dijiye, main aapke paanv haath lagata huun…he continued with the most sober tone I had ever heard by then in my whole life.

His agony and helplessness pinched mine innerself .

Well!! Can’t get more bad than that…dilli jaise shehar main bina paison ke, hey bhagwaan!! Kitna dukh hai iss duniya main..i thought.

To abhi aap waapis train se jaaoge? I asked him

Ji..he said

Kitne paise lagenge? I asked him.

He gave me a rough number.

I checked my purse.it was a new job and I hadn’t got any salary by then. Still I pulled out some of mine last currency notes with a smiling Gandhi on them and handed over them to him, wonder if Gandhiji laughed so much in his real life.

Bahut bahut shukriya babuji, he said

Have a safe journey, I replied.

He seemed happy….so was me. Kind of felt great after having helped someone getting out of such a great mess.

“ab toh swarag jaane se koi nee rok sakta” I thought ;)

Well!! Couldn’t help myself from being captivated by that feeling then. Don’t know why, but normally , we keep on doing bad things  in our lives without ever contemplating  about consequences of our actions and sometimes, when the noble part of us inside questions us, we try making up excuses  to justify ourselves, many times blaming  others also just for having a mental peace of mind and when once in an eternity, we do one good thing by chance, we believe ourselves to have the purest soul on the planet, having atoned for everything with one good gesture.

So, that was my time of bartering the fruits of mine misdeeds with gods. I felt like an angel for a few minutes then, possessing the most noble soul  to have graced the earth.

A few days later, me, Raveesh and vivek, my roommates, after having dinner were sitting on the benches  outside GIP mall in Noida. We used to walk upto GIP mall at sector 18 Metro station every evening talking, mostly about our corrupt politicians, bad education system, weak infrastructure, government policies and a zillion other things, which we believed to be in a  much inferior state  in comparison to our western counterparts.

  We happen to be that part of our present  young generation, who have  benefitted the most from the economic strides made by our country in the last two decades. We have the best jobs in market available right now, surplus money and a  promising future, even then we  have nothing but frustration to show at the current handling of our country by our politicians. Usually, it’s a moral responsibility of educated people of a society to show light to those who can’t see it by themselves, to rise against  the evils, but ours is a strange generation. Here, a eighty year old retired sepoy from Indian Army fights government on its face with rest of us liking him on facebook.

Bhaiyaa, akele  facebook pe Anna Hazzare ko like karne se kuchh nee hota.

But still most of us do it, believing that we have contributed our part.

So, like any normal evening, we were sitting outside GIP mall. Vivek was telling about the art of photography in ad shoots, like if it’s an ad of a handbag, doesn’t matters how much hot  the model is, or how less clothes she is wearing, your eyes will fall instantly on the Handbag.

All three of us were glaring at the gigantic poster of a handbag company hanging on the front face of the GIP. Vivek was busy analyzing the poster while Raveesh listened attentively to him, trying to come up  with counter questions while i was hoping for that picture to turn into life. Suddenly a kid appeared on my side. He was around six years old, wearing  pants with infinite holes and a shirt with no buttons on it. He wiped his nose with his wrist and said,

Saab, bhookh lagi hai, paisa do…

It was 10.40 PM.  I gave him a two rupees coin. He ran away from there jumping. I was watching  him running past the outer barricades of mall when I heard Raveesh’s voice from behind.

Yeh kya kiya tune?

Kya kiya maine?? I asked back in ignorance..

You just gave that kid alms…

Then!!!  I shrugged my shoulders,  what’s wrong in that…

Dude, haven’t you seen Slumdog movie..its all  system, these kids work for mafia, who deploy these kids on every street just to make some easy money and by giving these suckers  money,  you are just contributing to this rotten world…raveesh said.

Buddy, what’s the deal…it was just two rupees and that kid seemed really hungry…I replied trying to justify myself.

Achha!! Jis tarah phudakta hua wo gaya hai….lagaa  nee ki he was any hungry… raveesh said..

Maybe koi rehri waala ho wahaan…I said.

11 baje kaun rehri waala hoga wahaan…dude he went straight to his uncle...vivek ,who was until then,  busy with poster , said.

Bata raha hoga wahaan ki kaise ek 27 saal ke gadhe ka  f***  banaya…raveesh added…

Rehan do tum dono… ek to kisi bande ne ek bachhe ki help ki aur upar se tum do ho…trying to pull the leg of the Bill Gates now...khotey..

Both of them smiled.

This ain't yours goddy goody himachal buddy....vivek said...you don't  give alms here, every penny you give like that makes the anti social elements fatter, often motivating them to kidnap more kids, and they amputate most of'em. Just imagine yours very own kid kidnapped and blinded..how would that feel...

pretty bad...i said ...

hmmm...so next time whenever you think of turning into a Bill Gates, just go to any of the million charity sites online and donate there....Its Delhi...we do things here that way...vivek said..

i was silent for a few minutes.... thinking about that child, who was probably again faking hunger somewhere else. Suddenly, my thought went towards that Tamil guy also...maybe, he was a fake also. i asked them indirectly about him that just suppose you happen to meet a guy from Maharashtra on a vacation, who has lost everything that very same morning, what would you say to that guy...

 bhosdi de, ghar se aaya kyuun tha??? vivek said

why??? i asked.

yaar sab fraud hote hain yeh...bheekh maangne ke naye naye tarike...and they make more money this way....he added.

Raveesh started smiling hearing that.

Kinne deke aaya tu? he asked

500 !!

buddy, u gonna learn big way  about life here... its a hell lot more different then the world in your books...he said.
yaa...seems like that to me also..i said calmly..
did he appeared like he was from Tamil Nadu?  raveesh asked again..
nope..and he spoke Hindi pretty well too...i had a doubt then also, but dunno why i did that..i said
 koi naa yaar...hota hai...mistakes are  part of life..just make sure you don't repeat them... he added
i was  really really ashamed of my utter foolishness by then.

 i just thought that what about he was really stuck..what about he was telling truth...99.9% chances are that he was lying but what if he was in the other 0.1 %... just imagine that also......i said

we aren't saying its your fault yaar..thing is you should have analysed him...we meet everyday a hell lots of people like that daily..and from every part of our country...and nearly all of them do this for easy money...even if we give money to a single one of'em, we will be corrupting them more...and India is a pretty big country with big hearted people...so those people  always find that 'someone', who'll trust their lies...one guy a day...their life is made...and that trust of yours encourages them...vivek said...
and a guy who's really stuck, mostly won't go for money like that...there are a million ways to earn money...just imagine yourself in such a position...will you do that in case you get stuck...raveesh added
never in a million years...i said thoughtfully...hmmm...mistakes happen...trick is never to repeat them...


Well...I was silent after that. They say it right, you grow everyday and that day was just that day.