No more pretences

When I first saw him, I was struck by how small he was, compared to the rickshaw he used to pull. Then, gradually, the details began to capture my attention. Hair that could not even be called salt and pepper because the grime on his hair gave it a million shades of black, grey, white and brown. An equally grimy beard that reminded you of a certain limerick written by Lear...

There was an old man in a tree,
Whose whiskers were lovely to see;
But the birds of the air,
Pluck'd them perfectly bare,
To make themselves nests on that tree.

Come to think of it, he actually looked like that man in the illustration, with his beard sticking out in all directions! You only needed a few sparrows to come pecking at his beard. Whenever I had anywhere to go, he would invariably be the only man waiting at the gate with his rickshaw. It didn't take me too long to find out why. Most people avoided him because he was extreeeemely slow! I suppose, in a city where everyone is in a big hurry, he could be quite a liability. The problem with me, as a few of my friends point out, is that I am too generous with my rickshaw pullers. So I happen to be the favourite among all the rickshaw pullers standing at the gate. They all treat me like a princess, and I still haven't figured out whether that's good or bad. But with this old man, straight out of Lear's limerick, I had an extra special relationship. First was, of course of chance. I almost always happened to come out of my gate just when all the other rickshaws were taken. Second was of mere absent-mindedness, because invariably, in that split second when I had to choose a rickshaw, I would be thinking of something else, and end up getting on to his rickshaw.

It was awfully painful to sit behind this man. He would always be reeking of alcohol, and his clothes would be smeared with dirt, with tiny twigs sticking out here and there. Looking at him, I always imagined him lying bleary eyed in some gutter after his daily drinking binge. Drink had obviously taken a toll on his body. He was so tiny that his feet could barely reach the pedals; with his frail health, getting the rickshaw to move was almost impossible. And heavens help you if he had to take a sharp turn! You would have this scrawny old man literally standing on the pedal and simultaneously heaving on the handles of the rickshaw, while the rickshaw moved neither forwards nor backwards, stuck in the most uneconomical position in the middle of the busy road. Then of course, would follow the taunts of the drivers on the road-"Oye! Raasta kyon block kar raha hai?", "Arre, dadaji, raaste se hat jao!" And I would cringe in my seat, feeling apologetic on his behalf! Soon, I began to feel like avoiding him, but the eagerness with which he looked at me each time I came out of the gate wouldn't let me do that. After all I was, perhaps, his only regular passenger.

There were moments of sublime human connection between us too. One winter evening, when his drinking habit was probably getting the better of him, the cold was biting him through his tattered sweater, and his body was tortured by this racking cough he had caught, we were riding up the camel back road of Civil Lines. And as usual, the rickshaw refused to move. I offered to get down so that he could push the rickshaw over the hillock, but he pretended not to hear me. I could see proud self respect throbbing in every joint of his body. He doggedly pushed and pushed till we were finally over the hillock, and then he turned around and said, "Wait till I get that new rickshaw with gears. I'm really going to fly then!" That gave me food for thought that lasted the whole evening.

Soon, he got that rickshaw with gears, but that didn't have too much of an impact on his speed. Soon, my respect, sympathy and conscience began to bother me like a millstone around my neck. There were so many appointments I had nearly missed, so many lectures and meetings I had to enter with embarrassment written all over my face, all because of him. And people started calling him my 'favourite' rickshaw puller.

So the other day, I was in a great hurry, and in a really selfish mood. As usual, his was the only rickshaw at the gate and he came smiling up to me. I shook my head and said, I wanted to walk today. Halfway down the road, I saw another rickshaw coming towards me; the rickshaw puller stopped and asked where I wanted to go. I got onto it, feeling like a complete bitch. As I sat, I looked around furtively, only to see him looking straight at me. I found myself lowering my eyes and shrinking into myself, almost as if to hide my very existence. But then, I drew a long breath, turned and looked ahead. The breeze hit my face as the rickshaw took speed. Suddenly, I felt a weight lift from my heart. I was no longer bound by my conscience. There were no pretences between us anymore.