“There is a need for 500 rupees”, he keeps repeating, his eyes just slits, as he looks towards the ground.
I am standing in Dadar railway station heading for Pune to meet my brother in law for the weekend.
It’s a yearly ritual when coming back from the states. I get to see him one day once a year. He takes me out for dinner and although it’s an expensive affair, in all these years I’ve never even made a presumptive attempt at picking up the tab.
Every year, I eat and talk and laugh with them and then sit there slightly mortified when the check comes in. Not that he has ever hinted the other way either. My sensible better half knowing my proclivities will take care of things behind the scenes writing out a generous check every year to them as our way of showing appreciation. I don’t know the amount. I don’t dare ask. I would rather not know.
It’s early morning on a lazy Sunday and yet there are throngs of crowds everywhere on Dadar station. College students heading back to Pune clustered together laughing, a bunch of old-timers who have known these tracks for years. There is also a local stud dressed in a tight t-shirt, fake gold chains propped around his scrawny neck, adjusting his coiffed hair looking into a cell phone.
Behind those groups, I notice a middle-aged guy walking with a red and white stick, a universal indication of the blind. He wears a white shirt and pants both of which look like they have seen better days. A white triangular cap sits in his head and is usually an indication that he is a villager. A small cloth bag hangs from his left shoulder.
As he shuffles through the crowd it looks like he is looking for something. He taps his stick as he walks, sometimes teetering on the edge of the platform but seemingly finding his way back, leaving my stomach in a knot.
People are moving around him but not all are considerate. A scrawny guy running from the other direction suddenly slams into him a full momentum. For a second scrawny guy is stunned by the impact and stands dazed. Then he starts to run again as the blind guy moves ahead, slowly now, with some coiled-up apprehension.
I finally decide I’ve seen enough and walk up to him as I hold him from the arm.
“Where are you looking to go?”, I ask.
“D3”.
He is telling me his coach number.
I am in D4 going on a different train, so I hold his arm and start walking. It’s not that far and his train is already being announced so it should be coming in less than 5 minutes.
I suddenly notice his feet.
They are devoid of any footwear and his left toe is bleeding from some recent wound. Very recent.
“Your toe. It’s bleeding”, I tell him, almost speaking to myself.
“ I know sir. A man just ran into me. His shoes….”
I stand there next to him holding his arm on that crowded station watching the red puddle around his toe widen. Nobody around him notices anything or they pretend not to. Here in this part of the continent as in anywhere else it’s each man on its own.
“What are you doing in the city?”, I ask, trying to distract myself. There is no concept of first aid around here. You get hurt. You suck up. You move on.
“I am from Nanded. I was here to collect some funds for my son’s education. He is in college now. I collected 1300 rupees (18$) but fell short of 2000 that we needed.”.
There is regret tinged in his voice and I look at him. There is no expression on his face. Just two closed slits.
“When was the last time you ate?”
There is no answer. I don’t think he has heard me. His train is being repeatedly announced now over the loudspeaker. A minute passes by in silence. His arm is getting uncomfortably sweaty to hold yet I dare not leave it. The red puddle around his feet is already starting to cake up.
“Day before yesterday”, I hear him say with slight hesitation. He then looks the other way.
“Would you like to eat something?”
“Oh no! The train will be here any minute. I don’t want you to miss it”. He thinks I am taking the same train.
I don’t correct him. Instead, I am eyeing the distance between us and the nearest food stand. 100 meters, 5 minutes. I think I can make it.
“Hold on here. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back”.
Before he replies, I am already sprinting, navigating the crowds.
As I bring back some piping hot samosas wrapped in a newspaper, I regret not picking some for myself. They smell the smell of heavens.
The smell reaches him before I do. The face breaks out into a smile. The closed slits look even smaller but the face is pure joy.
He doesn’t thank me but instead touches the packet to his forehead and shuffles to put it in the small cloth bag hanging from his shoulders.
“If only I could find 500 rupees”, I hear him say. I think he wants me to hear it.
A 5-year-old boy caked in mud, shirtless with his stomach bulging suddenly stands in front of us.
“Sir, 5 rupees sir….”
The boy is going after me. The obvious choice. Dressed in a t-shirt and sneakers which a chic-looking roller bag, the village bumpkin in a white cap is not even worth asking.
I ignore him. Having spied his mother, a thin Indian woman clad in an old saree standing on the other side, I look the other way. It’s a professional setup. Having lived here long enough, I know one when I see one.
As the boy sees no movement, he loses interest and starts to move away.
I suddenly see the blind man reach out. His hand catches the boy by the shoulder.
Two samosas emerge from the packet in his bag and before I know it the boy is already nibbling the crusty outsides, his face breaking out in all smiles. His mother stands there in the other end frowning. Money, not food is the golden rule in professional panhandling. He is just a kid. He will learn his lesson someday. Today is not that day.
“They get hungry too, sir”, he says by way of explaining that he means no disrespect giving away food that I got for him.
“Just if I had made the remaining amount, I could go back without any issues…”
I hear him but pretend to ignore him.
I noticed that he didn’t eat his food immediately, but dropped it in his shoulder bag. I have been hungry three days to know what it does to you and any semblance of self-respect that you have. I file that away somewhere as we stand there, my fingers clutched tightly around his arm.
“We have no land to till anymore. My wife died some years ago. Just this boy. He is our only hope”
I stand there in silence.
It’s not that I am not moved by his story. But I smell a setup. Having seen that I got him 50 rupees worth of samosas in a blink, my obviously accented Hindi, the deodorant scent wafting off me…. I think he has done the math.
Suddenly he is not the victim anymore. I am.
“Train 12914 Tapovan express arriving on platform number 4”
As the announcement for the incoming train reaches a fever pitch, so does his self-mumbling. To his credit, he never asks explicitly.
“I wish I could stay another day and scour some charity, maybe…but I have to get back. He is alone there”
“How long will it take you to reach?”I ask, changing topics.
“13 hours sir”
I find myself touching the inner corners of my back pocket where bills of 500 are rolled up. India after all its so-called progress is still a cash-based society. Carrying decent amounts of cash is always a good idea.
I slide it almost all the way out and then back in. I pull it back out this time ripping off a 500 rupee note from the pack and sliding the rest back in. I slip it back in.
I look at his face trying to decipher some element of deceit, trying to use my skills of reading people. All I see is a dark pockmarked face, those old white clothes, and that triangular white cap
And of course, those freaking slits.
My logical brain has kicked in a long time ago. He has made a reservation. Even when subsided for people with disabilities, it’s still an expense. Not eating his food immediately. Maybe he is storing it for later. It’s a long ride after all.
The train punches into the station as the clamor around us suddenly reaches a feverish pitch. People are tense and ready. Ready to jump in first. To corner the seats, get settled. I don’t blame them.
As the train halts, I slowly push him ahead covering him from both sides with my arms pushing people outwards so he can climb in before someone runs him over from behind or from the sides.
“Third row on the left”. I say as I give him a final jolt inward and upward and let the crowd from behind carry him in as I remove myself from between him and the eager travelers behind.
I stand by the window as I see him come back and settle into his seat. He folds his stick and tentatively looks outside.
He is searching for something.
He is looking for the sucker.
“I am here…”, I find myself whispering to him, the metal bars of the window sill separating us.
The loud whistle pierces the air as the train starts to slowly move.
I look at him for a second. His fingers are clutching the metal bars of the window sill separating us, the fingers reaching outwards. Moving.
I suddenly reach in my pocket, pull out the entire pack of the multi-colored currency notes of all denomination, the gray 10s, the blue 50s, the dark-hued 100s, and of course the purple 500s as I roll them all up into a discreet looking pack. I pull his hand out, thrust the pack, and fold his palms tightly lest he drops it on the track.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he smiles. It’s not the smile of delight or the sudden encounter of good fortune.
It’s a smile of knowledge.
He knows.
And in that instant, I realize it too…
The train moves and I stand there watching the white cap move away as someone from the crowd pulls me behind. The train has picked up speed and there is some well-wisher behind me.
Four hours later as the train moves into Pune Central station, I walk out into the bright sunshine, the incident already a distant memory.
As I hail a rickshaw to take me to my brother in law’s place, I habitually touch the jeans pocket for the familiar crunch of paper.
There is none.
“Where to?”. The rickshaw has stopped and the driver is already anticipating my entry into his vehicle.
“ Sorry. Nowhere”, I say as he looks pissed.
I don’t wait for an answer. Instead, I dial.
“Hey! The train is running around an hour late”. I am hoping he is not savvy enough to look it up online and call me out on it.
“No worries. Let me know when you are close”
Turning around I cross the street and start to walk.
It’s going to be a long walk home.
