It
was early morning 8 a.m. when I was crossing the over bridge, but here in Delhi,
unlike my hometown- where this’ a time where you could hear mothers screaming
at their kids to get up and go to school, family members chit chat with a cup
of tea in hand, milk man, news paper boy and all the disrupting elements come
to knock at the doors, beggars increase the liveliness of the streets by
singing some hymns in their ‘not-so’ melodious voice, but here in Delhi there is a never ending rush of the milling crowd,
all racing in a never ending race, a race of corporate workers to meet their
business targets, a race of stockers to grab the maximum, a race, a rush.. which
can drive a sane person crazy…. this city never sleeps. But to me it’s more of
a dead alive, a soulless city, with no respect for emotions of people.
Anyway
getting back to my 8 a.m. incident, my eyes rested on an old lady asking people
to help her cross the road and drop her to some nearby area since she wasn’t
able to take care of her body, suffering of an unavoidable disease ‘old age’. In
an instant my small-town instinct took over and i hastened my pace to help the
old lady who was becoming a constant prey to people’s ignores and sometimes
rebukes but some invisible force held me back and some pictures which my own
imagination had formed after listening to my friend’s story were being flashed
on my retina by my intelligent but not so sensitive brain.
Last
night she had recited the real life incident of her office mate’s cousin, who
was on the way back home after a long tiring day from office. On the way she
was stopped by an old lady who pleaded her to drop her at her home. She made
her sit in the car and on approaching a not so crowded road, the old lady took
out a knife and snatched away all that the girl had, some jewelry and money and
injured her hand. The girl somehow reached home in a pathetic condition and has
been in a state of shock since then. My friend also warned not to be carried
away by my favorite hobby of helping people.
I
was confused and unable to decide. My not-so sensitive head was arguing with my
not-so intelligent heart. It seemed to me more like a fight between my home-town
morals n my work city’s practicality and eventually the logical and practical
‘me’ won and the morally sound ‘me’ lost.
My
pace was back to normal and so was my heartbeat which had shot up due to a
sudden rush of adrenaline. I turned around and made my way back to the station
where I had wait to get my train. The crowd of millions made me lose sight of
that lady but I could not lose the guilt that now haunted me. The whole day in
office was a mess, with a capital ‘M’. I just couldn’t concentrate on work and
couldn’t even expose my fear to the highly practical metro city people for whom
my thoughts would be worthless or some attention seeking device. It wasn’t
their fault, this negativity and selfishness had crept into their blood now.
After
the long tiring day, still carrying the load of guilt on my back, I reached
back home but with no want or need to eat anything, I changed and climbed onto
the bed, with a million questions poking my head, what if the lady was genuine?
What if it’s the big city’s lifelessness and selfishness was overcoming my home
town’s selflessness and morality? What if the hollowness of the city had
engulfed the real me? What if I was becoming another wandering soul of the dead
city? ..... With all these questions driving me crazy I slept off to be a part
of the night’s slumber of this always awake yet dead city…
