Man at the Metro

I often stare at the people I travel with, to and fro, from the jungles of Gurgaon, on the metro. I feel like we are all coal miners, enslaved to concrete instead now.

The people, who jostle for space to lean on the plasticised doorways of the train, seem like travelling stories to me. Irrespective of what we earn and how we earn, we are still enslaved to a monotonous similarity in our work lives. The same glass doors, wooden softboarded work stations, executive chairs and elaborate intercom and email systems.

On the train though, apart from the fanciful phones that ALL have plugged into their ears, the expressions, clothes and gestures tell the inside story, unique to each one of us...

Last night, on my metro ride home, lulled by the urging voice of Allison Krauss wondering “how can I keep from singing”, I walked out of the jostling crowd. On the platform, one image gleaned itself on  my heart and made my whole being akin to the house of Usher.

An old man, wrinkles speaking of the hardening of sunlight and reality on him, was trying to come out of the other metro train, hiding his sack of tools behind his back, in shame. He was over awed by the shiny phones, glittering bags and overall opulence of the earphones robots who elbowed past him, with disdain and disapproval.

I wonder why we melt into tears and pity on watching such old people on the film screen but in reality we are really, corporate bitches? This man was muttering apologies to each who painfully elbowed past him in a bid to get out first; and what was he apologising for? His poverty? His dust laden clothes and whitening hair? His once sinewy now trembling wrinkled arms?

Why do we merely and blindly judge people by their show of money? Yet, when we watch our “stars” on the film screen, we nod robotically in approval of social upheaval of the real masses of India. Is this decadence or a mirage to disillusion our own conscience?

The old man got a hard push from a particularly “hot” woman who was being ogled at for her apparently bold show of legs and an i-phone. Countless coins from his shirt pocket fell out all over the platform. When she saw who she had bumped into, her face turned into the ugliest manifestation of human features I have laid eyes upon and she said,

“Eww. So disgusting”.

The old man looked at her. He might not have understood the language but he certainly gauged her feeling and merely smiled at the swaying hips walking past in heels. I stood and wondered, who is the whore and who the Buddha? My mind throws unrelated thoughts at me all the time and for the discerning reader, this metaphorical question would make sense (hopefully).

The pain I felt for this man was like a stack of nails grazing down my throat to my heart. He squatted on the platform, looked down upon in disgust, in wonder and condemned as “oh, innovative beggar! Asking for money at the metro platform!”.

Seemingly unfazed by the criticism that each train brought onto him, he collected his coins and continued to carefully count them, from one aged hand to the other. He looked sad and puzzled, and desperately running his sight all around in search of something.

I could not bear being a bystander anymore so I asked him what troubled him, now that he had collected all his coins. The old man said, “I had Rs.23 in my pocket and now its only Rs.20”, a tear betraying his stoicism into childish despair.

“I was saving that money to come one more time on this Godlike train, its so fast and luxurious and has such good cooling and warming technique, though I could not spot the fans!!”

I merely nodded at the pain in his voice and enquired gently, if I could give him the remaining money to which his face hardened and he told me sternly, “You are just like a daughter to me, how can I take money from my child? My wife and children live in the village and I only get to see them once in a year...so to ease my loneliness, I take this train to divert my mind”.

I could simply nod in respect and in fondness for this man who was shunned by the world he worked for. They would never be able to fathom his pain, his solitude or his remarkable ability to forgive and forget. I only wish I could emulate him...