What a day it was…!

[1]

‘Why did you take our responsibility when you cannot fulfill it?’ yelled Rabi’s wife. ‘Fine…just leave and go to your father’s home… I am unable to take care of any of you….’ yelled back Rabi. He was tired of the incessant fighting and the ever increasing demand for money. This fight was going on for the past 2 days and every time his wife accused him of the same things and finally of marrying her and spoiling her life.

What could he do? He was a mere auto-rickshaw driver; he tried his best to earn a living in a respectful way. He was honest and had not learned the nasty tricks like that of his fellow auto-rickshaw drivers. He always charged the exact fare; never did he try to cheat his customers. Was that his fault? It is not that he did not try; he tried many times but failed each time. Every time his conscience came in the way and he could never do any such thing. Mala, his wife now, had eloped with him some years back, because she felt that he had a heart of gold. She fell in love with his honesty; and now after a marriage of 4 years and two children, she accused that same honesty for being the reason of their poverty and want. There were fights every day because he could not earn extra money like the other drivers did. He was tired and frustrated. Every day he thought that he would leave one day and never return, but then the faces of his children cropped up in front of him and he came back home each time. 

‘When will you ever try to give us a better life?’ shouted Mala at the top of her voice. Although an auto rickshaw driver, Rabi was different from others. He did not like shouting and haggling with customers, nor did he like the fact that his wife shouted while fighting with him. He felt very embarrassed when other people could hear their personal issues. He was furious but he did not say anything. He took his shirt from the clothes hook on one side of the wall and stormed out of the house. He started his auto rickshaw and went looking for passengers.

Mala got a little frightened with the silent response. She stopped abruptly in her anger and started to fear whether she had gone too far this time. She ran out of the house to see the end of Rabi’s speeding auto rickshaw disappear round the corner. She could not even ask where he was headed to. In her confusion, she slapped the toddler tugging at the end of her sari. The child shrieked loudly and started crying. Mala busied herself then, in consoling the child and went inside the house.

[2]

Rabi parked his auto rickshaw in the auto-stand and started waiting for his turn to take passengers to the station. Suddenly another auto-driver approached him shouting: ‘Today, you are not supposed to take passengers from this stand. Yesterday you fought with me over a petty passenger. I will not allow you to take any passenger from here!’ Rabi was bewildered for a moment, and then he remembered his brawl with this guy the last night. He was demanding extra money from a passenger when Rabi had stepped in to take the side of the passenger and rebuke him. Then had ensued a bad quarrel and his behavior now was the aftermath of that event. Rabi tried to smile and reason with him but it was no use. He was adamant to make Rabi leave. Finding no way out, Rabi started the engine of his auto and drove to the auto-stand close to the bus stand, hoping that his day would improve a little.

There were a lot of people at the bus stand. The Diwali holidays were coming in a few days and everyone seemed to travel everywhere, either they were returning to their homes or traveling to visit some place. Rabi noticed a couple standing near the Inter-City bus stand. They seemed quite well dressed and a little misfit in the usual crowd of bus-stands. The wife was talking over a cell-phone and motioned to her husband to take the luggage and cross the road. They crossed the road and were now standing next to Rabi’s auto-rickshaw. She went off the phone and kept checking her watch repeatedly, talking to her husband about the Bus that they were supposed to catch; which seemed to be late by some minutes. She then inquired at the ticket booth about the whereabouts of the bus.

The guy at the booth looked at her, heard her inquiry and informed her in a nonchalant tone, ‘That bus has left on time and is already half way….’ The woman could not believe what she heard and that too delivered by this inquiry-boy in such a non-alarming fashion!

‘What? Give me the number of the Bus coordinator now…I want to talk to him…How can they leave the bus without us? I had called yesterday to confirm our boarding from this point…give me the number now…’ she burst out on him. The guy at the counter replied with equal calm, ‘They must have felt that they don’t want to go this way…. so they left….here…you can talk to the bus coordinator if you want’. She was furious by the time he gave her the number but decided to talk to the bus coordinator first and then deal with this guy.

Rabi was admiring the woman’s skills in negotiating and shouting at other people to get her work done. She was again on the phone and with sound logic convinced the bus coordinator to stop the bus at the next stop, where they would reach by any means. Rabi was thinking what Mala would have done in such a situation. She would have either started crying or started a quarrel with Rabi saying it’s-all-because-of-you. It was true that education does change people and make them more reasonable. Amongst all these musings, a thought suddenly crossed Rabi’s mind.

By now, the phone call was over and she and her husband started looking for a mode of transport to reach the next bus stop. Rabi jumped into action. The usual fare to reach the next stop would be a mere 30 rupees but he thought he would demand 150. He waved at them to come and sit in his auto rickshaw. They came and started getting in when the woman inquired about the fare. Rabi’s reply of 150 rupees infuriated her further. ‘Are you crazy?’ she replied and instantly got off his auto rickshaw and started looking for another. Rabi got a little scared, she seemed tough and maybe he had stretched the fare a bit too much. He shouted back, ‘Okay…120 rupees…not a penny less than that….’

‘Just because you heard the problem that we are in, doesn’t mean you that you will take advantage of the situation! Look at how you are charging so much more…!’ haggled the woman. Rabi also did not want to charge more but he had to take some more money home, because he wanted to give Mala and their children a better life. He had to start earning more sometime or the other, and this was a golden opportunity, so why not! Rabi saw that they had no other mode of transport, so he tried his luck and replied,

‘If you don’t want to go then don’t go…I don’t want to haggle with the price’. The lady was adamant too, ‘Fine! We will give you what you are asking for, only if we catch the bus, but nothing if we miss it…’ Rabi was certain that he could reach the next bus stop on time, and the fare was quite a bit more than he usually got, he agreed. The couple was also in a fix, although he was charging more than the usual fare, they had no other way out, so they got back into the auto rickshaw and asked Rabi to speed up as much as he could.

The woman constantly kept track of the bus’s movement by talking to the coordinator over phone. Rabi started to like the woman’s crisis-handling abilities. He caught a glimpse of the woman talking to her husband now, from the rear view mirror. She was pretty, confident and certainly educated enough to control and mold the workings of this male dominated world as per her requirement. Nevertheless, he sped his auto-rickshaw as much as he could and was quite near his destination. He jived and juggled between several cars, buses, pedestrians and people on bicycles to reach the bus stand on time!

The couple sighed in relief as they saw the bus waiting for them at the bus stop. Finally they reached the bus stop, took their luggage out and paid Rabi the fare. They boarded and the bus sped by, leaving Rabi content. ‘Oh… What a day it was…isn’t it?’ mouthed the woman to her husband!

[3]

Rabi was happy, not only because he had earned a little extra money but also because this money would make Mala forget her worries for some time. He was also feeling good because he could help the couple catch the bus on time. He also made a mental note of taking his daughter’s schooling seriously, for the simple reason that he saw today an example how education made a person confident and independent. The biggest reason for their poverty, he felt, was a lack of education.

He kept thinking about all these while faring other passengers to and from their destinations. Finally, at the end of the evening and the break of the night he decided to return home. He had stormed out of the house in the morning without saying anything, Mala must be worried, he thought to himself.

He reached home and called out to wife in a happy voice, ‘Mala… come and see what I have got for you!’ Hearing her name, Mala almost ran out with a glass of water in her hand, already ashamed at her behavior in the morning. He put the day’s income in Mala’s hand. She smiled gripping the money in her fist, and replied with a smile still on her lips, ‘Oh… what a day it was…isn’t it?’

Image Courtesy:

http://500px.com/rajeshhh

(To be continued......)

Maa….(Mother)

[ Please Note: This post was originally published in http://wehaveastory.blogspot.com/2012/03/maa.html
But I’m reposting it here on request of some of my blog friends. Enjoy! ]


A little girl was jumping with joy, holding her father’s hand in one hand and a chocolate in the other. She was not too small almost in her teens but her innocence made her appear smaller than she actually was. Her family along with her mother, grand parents and brother had gone to visit a famous Kali Temple in the district of Bhirbhum. They were on a weekend trip and had plans of going for a little sightseeing once they finished offering the prayers. She was very happy, firstly, because it was her post-exam break. She had been cramped at home all this time and was enjoying every moment of the trip. Secondly, it was a family outing; she could do all that she wanted and her granny would save her from her mother’s scolding!

She could see the temple from the moment they entered the narrow alley leading to it. Both sides of the alley were littered with shops selling all kinds of articles with the picture or name of the Goddess Tara inscribed on them; starting from pens to key chains to photo frames and large posters…. You could get them all here. There were some modern things of utility too, like torches, costume jewelry, hand bags and a number of edible items like sweat meats of all kinds, and shops selling hot kachoris and jalebis too were aplenty. She was making a mental note of all the things she wanted to buy and have once they finish offering the prayers. The day being a Saturday, which was supposed to be the best day of the week to offer prayers to the Goddess Kali, the temple was thronged by millions of devotees. There were people everywhere!

Sounds of ‘Joy Ma Tara! Joy Ma Tara!’ resounded all over the temple. Thousands of devotees had thronged the Holy Kali Temple to offer their prayers to the Goddess. The prayer hall, which offered a clear view of the Goddess’s idol, was covered with a human carpet. The crowd was so huge it seemed like an entangled mass of human hands and feet, all trying to get a glimpse of the goddess in the process of being worshiped during Aarti.

Among all this noise, the pleas of a girl barely in her teens, was getting lost. She was small in height and was trying desperately to break free from the crowd, the smell of human bodies and the disgusting touch of the man who was freely roaming his hand all over her. She shouted for her mother ‘Maaa….!’ But there was no one listening. She tried to break free, meanwhile the noises around her increased and the rants of ‘Joy Ma Tara! Joy Ma Tara!’ was getting louder and louder. With the increase in the decibel of the noise, the man was getting emboldened in his vile act. In the crowd she had somehow lost grip of her father's hand and got plastered in front of this man. With all her strength she tried to move out of the crowd. After a lot of struggle somehow, she broke loose and sat down on the floor. From among the web of human legs she managed to crawl to the side of the prayer hall, which was a little empty. She leaned on the wall and started sobbing! All her innocence was shattered in one blow!

What was her fault? Like all devotees even she had gone to the temple and had plans of having a good time with her family? Is this what her family had prayed for? How can human beings be so cruel?

Life is perfect…

[1]

Riya closed her eyes and rested her head on Ryan’s shoulder. This feeling of safety was primal to Riya’s existence. She was unable to think that a day will come when she will not be able to enjoy such moments of solitude with Ryan. Over these few years, he had become an important part of her life: her friend, love and confidante. She could trust him with any secret of her life. He always had solutions to all her problems. No matter how tricky the situation was, Ryan found a way to bail out Riya from it. His suggestions in her work life as well as personal life were objective and practical. Even Ryan depended hugely on Riya. She was his pillar of strength. With each day their relationship had grown manifolds and found a new meaning.

She felt a slight jerk and looked up to see that Ryan was motioning her to keep her head off his shoulder. Lost in her own thoughts, Riya had almost forgotten that they were traveling in a crowded bus instead of Ryan’s car and both of them had huddled together to occupy the only empty seat in the bus. The journey to and from office was the most memorable part of Riya’s day. This was for the simple reason that she could be with Ryan and share all her happiness and worries with him. All her worries actually, turned to happiness when she was with him. Wherever they went she met a few envying gazes from women around them. Needless to say, she felt very proud to be with him.

‘By the way…why were you shouting at your team members today?’ inquired Ryan, breaking into her stream of thoughts. ‘When…? Oh..Yes…even you would have done the same had you been in my position’ defended Riya.

‘Why? What happened?’ questioned Ryan. ‘You know about that big client delivery that we have on the 20th….? Regarding that, my efficient team members had gone ahead and sought Subho Sir’s advice…even without telling me anything. Naturally….Subho Sir was irritated. He called me in his cabin and asked me to improve my relations with the team. Just imagine….. How big an insult that is to me?’ fumed Riya.

‘And…. you think…the solution to all this is shouting at your team? I don’t think it will help in any way. Just cool your temper for once…and think…. Do you actually give time in building communication within your team? Your team members may find you hard to approach…..maybe that is the reason why they went ahead to met Subho Sir! Why don’t you sit with them tomorrow first thing in the morning and ask them their issues…. What say?’ advised Ryan.

Ryan did have a point. Being busy with the client delivery she did neglect the issues plaguing her team members. Riya thought that maybe she was a little too hard on them. Actually she was stressed and angry at the same time for being called by Subho Sir. Thus, she conveniently vented her anger on her team.

‘Well…I think you are right! I don’t know what happens to me when I get angry…. I will talk to them tomorrow’ said Riya smiling. Saying it, made her feel relaxed. What would she do without Ryan….? She could not even think. He was just the radar of her life’s ship; the savior in her distress. Her thoughts were broken by the incessant ringing of Ryan’s phone. Ryan picked up the phone and cupped his hands over the speaker to avoid any disturbance. Riya looked out of the window to wait for his call to end.

‘So…what are you doing tomorrow? Can we go for shopping?’ asked Riya trying to change the serious atmosphere. ‘Shopping....? let’s see…You know that I cannot stay out of home for a long time after office. If you can manage to leave office a little early then maybe we can plan something..’ suggested Ryan. Riya beamed with joy, such rare moments were always to be cherished to the utmost. She entwined her fingers in his and whispered in his ears, ‘Thank you for being so understanding…..I love you so much’. Ryan smiled in agreement and added ‘I love you too….’ For Riya, the moment lasted for an eternity and everything else seemed to fade into oblivion! He slowly untangled his fingers from hers and motioned her to move and give way. His stop was coming next. She woke up from her reverie and smiled. As he approached the door she waved him goodbye. Riya’s stop was next. As soon as Ryan got off the bus, she also got up from her seat to walk towards the door. For as long as she could, she craned her neck to stare at Ryan’s fading silhouette in the darkness outside.

Ryan walked the ten minutes path leading to his home thinking about Riya and smiled to himself. He pressed the calling bell and waited patiently. The door opened and Sunaina flashed him a hearty smile. ‘Hey…how was your day?’ asked Sunaina enthusiastically. Entering, Ryan gave her a huge smile and added: ‘Just office…you know…you tell me what you did the whole day? And where is our little princess? Did she complete her homework?’

‘Oh…Yes…she has been a good girl all day. But she is fast asleep now’ replied Sunaina, obviously proud of her four year old.

Ryan went straight to his daughter’s room and carefully opened the door, conscious not to make any noise. He kissed the forehead of his sleeping child. She was in a sound sleep. He left the room silently to go back to his room. He then freshened up and sat down to dinner opposite his wife of 7 years. Dinner was the only time when he caught up with Sunaina, and talked about everything, especially, about their daughter. Their daughter was in school now and quite a bright child too. Life was just perfect for this family!

 

[2]

Riya walked herself home almost dragging to take every step; all the time thinking about Ryan and sometimes about her parents too. At times, she was worried about her parents, who were busy finding a groom for her. The way they were looking, it will not be long before they find someone appropriate. She was worried that this was also taking a toll on their health. They were always stressed about not finding the right guy. She smiled thinking about their concern for her and thought how lucky she was to have such wonderful parents. Her mother opened the door with a volley of questions.

‘How will I ever explain to the groom’s family that their would-be daughter-in-law has to return at midnight from office? I don’t know how will you manage when you get married? Not everyone will be as adjusting as Ma and Papa. Are you listening to me?’ shouted her mother. Riya flung her arms around her mother to stop her lecture. ‘Ma…enough…I’m tired already…give me something to eat please…’ pleaded Riya. Her mother softened instantly and set out to get the table ready for dinner. Riya freshened up and sat down to eat, all the time fidgeting with her phone.

‘Leave the phone alone and concentrate on your food!’ instructed her mother. Like a school girl, she grimaced at her mother mockingly, but obliged. Her father joined them on the dinner table.

‘How was your day, beta?’ asked her father. She smiled and replied with a nod, signifying that it was 'OK'. Mr. Awasthi was quite proud of his only child and discussing her office at dinner had become a routine for the past few years.

She was about to turn, to tell her father something about her office, when the screen of her phone lit up with the words: ‘Boss calling…’

Riya stopped to smile, picked up the phone and walked away from the dining table.

‘Hello…Ryan...? Calling so soon…..?? Is she asleep already…?’ she asked in a hushed tone.