TWO MYSTERIOUS MEN
A lake and a beach
When
I see the lake, I can see it full. I can see its boundaries. I can see its
stretch through my little eyes. But I cannot see its depth. I do wonder how
deep it is! I wonder about the fishes in it and how they would be living inside
the lake water in harmonious communities!
pic reference: https://www.goodfreephotos.com/
There’s a railway station about 25 minutes away from my
place. I have seen this station for the past 7 years and almost all people who
travel in the central railway line of the magnanimous city must have at least
once got down at this station. Many change trains from here to their respective
hometowns. Many live here too. I change my train from here almost each day. This
station I tell you is one of the prominent stops. Local train waits here for
about a minute and I tell you a lot happens in this whole one minute. Sea of
men get down and a large number of men like me wait for them to get down. The
wait seems never ending in this little duration of one minute. After the wait
is over, finally, we all scurry into the train to find a comfortable standing
place. All of this happens in one minute. It’s like mice scurrying in and out
of rags of grains!
But before the train arrives, we often have to wait for the
right train to our hometowns. My train is either from platform 4 or rarely from
platform 1. For the past 7 years, in this busy station, I have been associated.
“Saengh! Saengh!” reach my ears. It is a soft voice! Of the
man selling ‘singhdana’ (peanuts) to people like me waiting for our trains!
Whether on platform 4 or platform 1, I have seen him on both. I have a fixed
place on the platform because I board the same car of the train, the one which
is near to the exit of my hometown station. This man has the same position as
mine on both the platforms. And hence very obviously, I get notice of this man
even in the hustle and bustle of many men waiting on the platform like me.
Now this man has a soft voice. There is no aggressive
marketing tone when he vows for people to purchase his garam (warm) fresh
peanuts. It is so soft that I bet you will not notice unless you are hungry and
looking for stomach refreshment. I know his boundaries; he is seen always in
the same position and in a distance of 25-30 steps. I have never seen him
traverse the entire length of the platform to look for customers. Perhaps he
has made many in his limited space on the platform. He is obviously poor but a
neat man. He is well built, his shirt is unwrinkled, his hairs well kept! The
other day I saw that he has a bald patch on his back head but his hairs were
well cut and well kept.
“Saengh! Saengh!” I heard once again yesterday. I wondered
about the softness of his campaign to attract customers. It is not that he is
sad about his job but he is not ambitious as well. There’s a certain calmness
and neutrality in his body language. He seems away from happiness and grief. I
wondered ‘where does he live!’ On one of the platforms! Or he goes home late
night and comes the next day for his monotonous life routine! “Would he be
having a family?” I asked myself. I don’t know.
He is like a lake; still and calm! I know his
boundaries but I don’t know his depth!!!
*****
When I see the beach, I love the thunder the waves make!
They come from a distance, the waves, and hit the rocks with all the momentum
they build while coming aggressively to it. Thrilling! Enjoyable! The scent of
sand and a feel of break free! The beach is very vast. I cannot see its
boundaries through my little eyes. When I wonder of its depth, it’s a bit scary.
I know it must be very very deep!
pic reference: https://www.goodfreephotos.com/
My job started some six months ago and my company has three
prime locations in the magnanimous city. I have been in all three locations as
they do keep shifting us in the early days of job. When I feel habituated to
one place, they deport me to other! “Yaar jab pinjre se pyaar hone hi lagta hai
toh yeh riha kar dete hain!” (When the bird starts falling in love with the
cage, they free the bird!) To make arrangement in some other ‘pinjra’ (cage)! Anyways,
when I joined the company, I was given the location some one hour away from my
home in local train.
I never got down at this station which is near to the location
I got. It was my first time. Through people, I came to know that we get a 10
Rs. sharing auto-rickshaw to my workplace from the station. Now at this
station, a lot of working professionals get down to go the huge business park
which the town boasts of. My company’s office is in the same park standing neighborly
to many corporate power houses in the park. Majorly, all of the people who get
down at this station go to earn bread and butter through working for one of the
corporate buildings in the business area in the town. And to pick and drop
these men and women, a sea of rickshaws gathers outside the western part of the
station. The scene of black rickshaws one behind the other in multiple lines is
like a horde of crows feeding on a scatter of grains!
On my first day, I saw a huge line of men and women waiting
for the rickshaw. I was like ‘Oh my God! I’ll have to wait in this long queue
before getting the auto.’ But then I saw this man; a tall untidy person. His
shirt was half tucked in his pants, half outside. The top half buttons opened,
revealing his white under-shirt vest. He had brown muddy hairs and reddish
white teeth. He shouted “Godrej! Godrej!.. Haan aa jao! Arey idhar aao!”
(Godrej people come here. Go in this auto!) He was restless. But he was helping
people getting the rickshaws quicker and saving our time as we need not wait in
the queue. People going to ‘Godrej’, the business park, got the rickshaw with
his help. I too got his service and for my one month duration in that office
location, I needn’t bother to stand in queues.
I wondered he must be getting commission from the rickshaw
pullers. But why would rickshaw men bother if people had to stand in queues! “Did
he get money from some generous men among us?” But the working professionals
are always in a hurry. Many of them are too immersed in their cell phones. ‘Who
would be giving money to this man?’ I thought. There was an aggressive campaign
in his tone, a rough tone. He was more bothered for people to get the rickshaw
quicker than the people themselves. For once I thought, he belonged to
everybody but nobody belonged to him. I thought he must be doing this service for
free just to keep himself occupied and for his stomach, he would have made
friendship with the food stall owners who would be giving him something to eat
for free. Maybe this work would be giving him his share of peace like the beach
has its calm surface very far away from the shore. We only watch the waves but
at a distance from the shores, the beach is quite, no waves!
After one month, I was shifted to another location. And
after five months from that, that is a few days ago, I was deported to this
same old place. When I got down at the station on my revisit, I anticipated for
the service of this man. But he was nowhere to be seen. We ‘Godrej’ people didn’t
have to stand in queue and made arrangement to get the rickshaw quicker by our own
selves. The man was absent. I thought he might have got some job, a lucrative
offer to leave this place. Or was he no longer a part of this world! Maybe he
decided to leave to go to a new place to offer new services.
He was like a beach. I neither know his boundaries nor his
depth!!!
*****
You, me, we all; can be a lake or a beach. A sea
or an ocean! A ravine too!
Love,
J