A Wednesday Afternoon

Yesterday, the classes in college were declared over by 2pm. Though I prefer the bus, I decided to take an auto rickshaw for a change.

It was around 2:30pm, my ride had come half of the total distance to my home. The streets were quite busy, being the period after lunch break....

The auto stopped near a busy 4-way crossing to take in a passenger. I was sitting along with the driver in the front seat. There was a very old man in front of the auto. He had a broken bamboo stick in his hand, so much worn out that the tip didn't even reach the ground properly. His eyes were damaged and swollen with infection to such an extent that it was easy to guess he could not see anything. Dunno what he wanted to do, but he was almost walking on to the middle of the busy road without knowing.

The autowala felt pity on him & asked the people if the guy wanted to go where our auto was going. Someone asked him, but he wanted to go in the opposite route.
The autowala kept asking the people to help the guy. There were many people standing around, but no one was interested in helping. And the way he was standing in the middle of the road, an accident was impending.

My auto had no option but to start the engine & go ahead as the passengers were getting irritated. He kept ranting about the plight of modernisation, how everyone is too busy to help.  And cursed the people standing there.
Those words were hitting me somewhere deep down, where we keep all those morals learned from the textbooks of primary section. All those pictures depicting the noble deed of helping old and physically challenged and how the world was so good and kind inside those books.
On the other hand, I was calculating how much walking it would cost me if I get down now to help the old guy. The auto was picking up speed when the good half in me won. I asked the driver to stop. He gave me an apologizing look, probably thinking that I took his words personally. I paid the full fare & hurried back to the spot.

On reaching the crossing, I was glad to see there was no accident yet. But the old guy was nowhere to be seen. Some auto had probably picked him up and went off. I checked inside the passing autos, but couldn’t see him.

I started walking home, feeling a bit guilty, cause I had made too much delay in taking a good decision. I hoped he would survive the even busier traffic of the place he was going.

After walking for quite a while, I got to a rickshaw stand.  Most of them asked twice the normal price. I said to myself, “yeah! That’s how the world pays off a good doer..”  I got pissed off and went to the one standing in the farthest corner. He agreed to the normal price. He couldn’t speak but showed the price with fingers

When I got down near my home, I put in an extra 5 rupees note with his fare of the 10 rupees. Mostly because I was feeling guilty about the earlier incident.. He looked at me weirdly. I gave a nod and went off...  When I was closing the gate of my house, he passed by, with the two notes still in his hand, and with a smile worth 100 rupees :D
From then, I’m wondering if I should have put in extra 10 instead of only 5? Wonder how big the smile would have been then.
It’s ridiculous how we drop 100bucks as tip when we visit a 5 star hotel, but when it comes to poor beggars and rickshaw pullers, 5 rupees seems so big a deal!

N.B. Last time I gave extra 5 rupees to a very old and weak rickshaw puller, he blessed me saying that I’d get a great job in future (“Baba, boro hoia khub boro chakri korba")... For those people, getting a job is probably the biggest achievement in the world... Anyway, hope it comes true J