The finger

I did not turn my head around! Through the rear-view mirror I kept looking at the black jeep which had stopped a few feet behind my car. As the driver stepped out, my pulse started racing. The guy was about six-feet tall, bald and with muscles bulging out of his tight, black t-shirt. With a contemptuous look on his face, he started walking towards my car. I double-checked the locks of the door and quickly rolled up the window. Clueless about what I could do to save myself, I sat there like a rock with a prayer on my lips…

Today was definitely not my day! Suchi had planned tonight’s dinner a month ago with a stern warning thrown at me, “You better not let me down this time, Aadi! My parents will be in town only for an evening before they fly off to the USA for a year.” Instantly I had blocked the calendar on my mobile phone and I had also emailed my leave request to the boss. But as fate would have it, today was the day my company’s key client, whose account I was responsible for, chose to visit us and negotiate the next contract.

“Trust me! I will be back by evening, sweetheart.” But this assurance wasn't enough to calm down Suchi. I am sure she felt that I was deliberately avoiding the meeting with her parents as I never had high regards for them. And why would I? I was never respected by them just because Suchi and I had eloped two years ago, shattering their dreams of acquiring an NRI son-in-law. But this time I had no intentions of shying away from meeting them. In fact I had prepared myself to face them, half-heartedly though, just because I did not want to hurt Suchi’s feelings.

The client’s flight landed late owing to the notorious Delhi fog. And thanks to that delay, I was here sitting in a meeting with them till eight o'clock in the evening.

“Aadi… can you at least return home by ten o'clock, so that we can go to see off my parents at the airport?” Suchi had called up during my meeting, and her tone clearly reflected that she was trying her best to not shout at me and maintain decorum, perhaps because her parents were sitting at an audible distance from her. At nine o'clock when I asked my boss to excuse me from the dinner-meeting with the client, he did not take it too well. “What can I say? …it’s your decision. But I am sure you know that opportunities like these seldom knock at the doors of junior executives like you! And such obliviousness from your part might also affect your appraisal,” he said looking away.

No amount of scoffs or invectives could hold back me at this hour. If this is what I get in return of putting in my long hours, weekends and sweat for this company, I was better off being in my boss’s bad books than sacrificing any more hours from my personal life.

It being a Friday night, the streets were packed with an ironical combination of people (like me) leaving from work late, the BPO executives heading to work and the ones who had set out to party for the weekend. To add to the traffic woes, the City Municipality had decided to dig up one side of the road near my office to repair a pipeline. Precariously maneuvering through the infuriated cars, I managed to cover barely five kilometers in an hour. Sharp at ten o'clock my phone rang…

“Do you have any idea what the time is, Aadi?”

“I am on my way… the traffic is really bad today.”

“You always have an excuse ready at your fingertips! I am not even sure if I should trust you. If you didn't want to meet them, you could have simply told me!”

The auto rickshaw in front of my car refused to budge, and the black jeep behind my car kept blaring its horn at me.

“Suchi… you are putting unfair blame on me now! I did not refuse to meet your parents… but I can’t set aside my job for them!”

“Of course you can’t… you are always prompt in dodging all social contacts with my family in pretext of your job!”

 “Suchi! I am sure the flights would be delayed because of the fog, and we can make it in time to drop your parents at the airport. Now, if you let me drive peacefully I will try to reach home in half-an-hour,” saying this I disconnected the call.

I tried to swerve my car to overtake the broken-down auto rickshaw, but the incessant honking by the jeep behind my car didn't stop. Clubbed with the just-concluded argument with my wife, this behavior by the driver of the jeep was enough to tick me off! I rolled down my car’s window, put my arm out and gave him the finger before zipping out of my lane.

In an attempt to reach home quicker and pacify my wife’s temper, I decided to take the albeit longer, but lesser used route. The street lights were quite dim here, and the only human beings you could spot were an occasional group of rickshaw drivers huddling around a bonfire. Since I wasn't too familiar with this route, I strived to keep track of the directions. As I slowed down to ensure that I did not miss the next turn, my eyes fell on the rear-view mirror and I realized that a vehicle had been following me ever since I had diverted from the main road. On a closer look I realized that it was the same black jeep which was honking behind me, and the driver of which I had abused indicatively.

Was the jeep driver following me? Perhaps I was overreacting. To check if he was really on my trail, I accelerated up my car and took a few impromptu turns. But to my horror, wherever I went, the black jeep followed. Now I could feel my heart thumping against my chest and a trickle of sweat flowing down my forehead. Oh no! Had I ruffled the wrong feathers? Looking at the make of the vehicle, the owner certainly seemed to be an influential or powerful person or possibly both. That was it… I had to lose him from my tail or hit the main road again where there would be other people to save me. With my foot pressed hard on the accelerator, I just sped through the unknown lanes without paying heed to directions at all, till I hit a dead-end.

I did not turn my head around! Through the rear-view mirror I kept looking at the black jeep which had stopped a few feet behind my car. As the driver stepped out, my pulse started racing. The guy was about six-feet tall, bald and with muscles bulging out of his tight, black t-shirt. With a contemptuous look on his face, he started walking towards my car. I double-checked the locks of the door and quickly rolled up the window. Clueless about what I could do to save myself, I sat there like a rock with a prayer on my lips.

The knock on my car window shook me up, but I gathered some courage to look towards his face with a fake but dramatic ‘I-am-not-scared’ expression. With an evil grin on his face, the bald man gave me the finger, walked back to his jeep and drove away!

As I was trying to come to terms with what just happened, the notification tone of my mobile phone made me rake for it in the darkness. ‘1 message from Suchi’.

“I called a cab for Ma and Pa and they have left. Please don’t bother to leave your WORK behind for such trivial occurrences of my life!”

The mobile phone clock showed eleven o’clock and I was stranded at an unknown spot in the middle of nowhere. The only picture remaining in front of my eyes was that of the bald man giving me the finger.

The 'prized' posession

“Babujee... could you please keep an eye on my bag lying there?” a jittery voice interrupted the interesting plot of the novel that I was reading.

I moved my gaze to discover the source of the voice - a dark face, tanned further by over exposure to the summer sun... teeth stained with gutkha... drowsy eyes displaying either fatigue or drunkenness. The strands of hair peeking out of his nose and ears were longer than his unkempt stubble, and the amount of dirt he had been exposed to was revealed by the gooey black accretion in the corner of each eye. I could make out from the wrinkles on his face and arms, and looking at his receding hairline leading to a patch of gray hair, that he was at least seventy years old. He was shabbily dressed in a torn dhoti (which I presumed would be white in color had it been washed), and his hand quivered while pointing towards the tattered jute bag which was kept on the floor of the railway station platform, a few meters away from where I sat. The brown bag reminded me of the big sack of potatoes that Bansi, our subzeewala, kept near the wall behind his roadside shop and resting against which I have seen him take numerous naps during the pleasant summer afternoons of Pune. The jute bag of this old man was as big as Bansi’s sack, and was filled with God-knows-what.

I chose not to reply and turned back to the book that I was reading.

“I will return in no time,” saying this he limped away, before I could react. Did he interpret my silence as an ‘okay’ nod? How could he expect me to guard the belongings of a stranger... and especially one whose appearance did no good to establish that he was a trustworthy individual?
Making a dog’s ear on the page that I was reading, I closed the book and looked around. The big digital clock hanging near the over-bridge displayed 7:15 am.

'May I have your attention please! 22041... Goa Express from New Delhi is running late by 30 minutes, and will now arrive at 7:45 am on platform number two. We regret the inconvenience caused.' This announcement did not come as a surprise to me, yet I let out a sigh of disgruntle. Stealing one quick glance at the sack which the old man had left at my custody, I wandered around to locate a tea stall.

* * *

This morning I had to wake up much earlier than usual to reach the railway station on time. My father was coming from Delhi and hence I was pulled out of the bed at 6:00 am by my wife.

“You are really shameless, Aadi!” she had shouted right after tugging away the blanket covering me. “Why do you bother to set the alarm if it fails to even budge you?”

I remember sitting up on the bed, rubbing my eyes for quite some time. “When is dad’s train scheduled to arrive?”

“In an hour!” she had screamed back before running towards the kitchen.

Hearing this I had sprung up on my feet and rushed to the bathroom. This was the first time that my father was visiting Pune ever since we had moved to this city a couple of years ago. This made my wife very conscious and she was on her toes since last week to have the house in tip-top condition before he arrived. I wondered what she would have done had my mother also accompanied my father in this trip.

“How many times did I tell you to get curd from the grocery store, Aadi? You know very well that dad likes to have curd after lunch!”

I had just formed a lather of the toothpaste in my mouth and couldn’t speak much – which was in fact a good thing for me as I did not have an apt reply. I stared at her reflection on the mirror and put up a guilty expression, while I continued brushing my teeth.

“You are really ridiculous!” were her last words before she had dashed out of the room.

* * *

“Your tea, sahib!” said the shop attendant banging the small glass of cutting-chai on the counter. The aroma of ginger lingered into my nose as I took the first sip... just what one needed in a rainy Pune morning like this. Finishing the steaming shot of tea, I strolled back to the bench which I had occupied earlier. I could have walked away to a different seat but I don’t know what made me go there and check if the old man’s belonging was safe. It was.

The tattered sack, with one cardboard piece sticking out of it, lay on the dirty platform floor untouched. Behind the sack was a steel pillar with a poster stuck on it... ‘Please call 100 if you see any suspicious object lying unattended.’ I scanned the vicinity to see if I could spot the old man, but he was nowhere to be seen. It had been at least 15 minutes since I had last seen him. One part of me compelled me to raise an alarm, while the other said that it was not that big a deal. As I seated myself on the bench with conflicting thoughts scuffling in my mind, my phone rang.

“Aadi... the train has crossed Lonavala 20 minutes ago. I think it will enter Pune station in the next 10 minutes,” I heard my father’s excited voice over the phone.

“Please be at your seat when the train enters Pune, and don’t bother to scuffle through the crowd carrying your suitcase, dad! I don’t want you to sprain your ailing back.”

I chit chatted with my father for a couple of minutes, trying to convince him that I will be standing right outside the compartment he is seated in and will help him get down in time, before a commotion on the platform diverted my attention. Hanging up the phone, I walked up to the mob that had accumulated at a distance. Jostling my way through a few people forming the outermost ring of the crowd, I realized that the object causing this ruckus was the tattered sack left behind by the old man.

A police hawaldar stood at an arm’s length poking it with a stick.

“Who does this belong to?” he let out an annoyed yell. Nobody responded. I too chose to remain silent.

“I repeat... if the owner of this sack does not come forward right away, I will have it thrown away!”
Restlessness crept into the hawaldar as he failed to receive a response to his repeated inquiries. He poked deeper into the sack inducing the mob to step back slowly. With a careful flick of the stick, he forced open the mouth of the sack and spilled out its contents on the floor.

I peeked over the shoulder of the person standing in front of me to get a closer look at what emerged from the sack...
Two over-ripe bananas, one half eaten vada-pav, a foil containing leftovers from the meal distributed in trains, two empty ice-cream cups, one crushed bottle of mineral water, a few pieces of wood and cardboard, some dirty plastic spoons and one empty beer bottle.

What! This was the ‘prized’ possession of the old man which he wanted me to guard? How ridiculous... who on earth would have even touched this rag-picker’s bag?!

* * *

As soon as Goa Express’ entry into the station was announced, everyone in the platform was pushed around in the hustle-bustle and I rushed to follow compartment AS-4.

Typical of my father, not heeding to any of my instructions, he was standing at the door of his compartment with a suitcase in one hand and holding the handle of the door with the other. His eyes searched for me in the stadium-like crowd.

“The food they served in this train is better than the one your mother and I ate while going to Calcutta. And my God... the weather in Lonavala was excellent. It felt as if we were traveling between the clouds...” my father chattered on with a child-like excitement. I knew that his excitement was owing to the fact that he was meeting me after many months, and the train journey had a lesser contribution towards it.

I had a suppressed smile on my lips as I nodded on and carried his suitcase ...with him trotting close on my heels.

As we raced past the other passengers, who had disembarked from Goa Express, to reach the stairs of the over-bridge before it became too crowded; I spotted the same old man who had approached me to watch over his sack. He was standing near the steel pillar – one with the poster stuck on it... ‘Please call 100 if you see any suspicious object lying unattended.’

With his head grabbed tightly between both hands, he looked at the contents of his sack strewn all around. All the eatable items it once contained were mashed under the footsteps of the thrilled members of the crowd who had rushed to receive their family members on arrival of the train. The expression on the face of the old man was that of utter disappointment. Next to him was an old woman sitting on a wooden plank with four small wheels. Both her legs were amputated. She was trying to lick out whatever was left in a corner of the foil which had once contained a sumptuous meal distributed in the train.

At that moment it occurred to me that perhaps the old man had left for a while to bring his wife over. Perhaps the leftover food items were their lavish breakfast of the day. Perhaps the sack was really his ‘prized’ possession!

As I walked off with the wave of the massive crowd, the old man’s eyes met mine for a moment. He didn’t react, but the disappointed expression on his face screamed out to me, “All I had requested you to do was guard my sack for a few minutes...”