A FEW GOOD MEN

Calcutta, 1988: It was sheer chance that landed me in a PSU job where  I stuck around for two decades. A very sweet Mallu friend of mine from the schooldays showed me an advertisement by the only monopolistic insurance apex body that existed at that time inviting applications from fresh graduates for recruitment as probationary officers in its four subsidiaries. We had met in the post graduate classes after having parted ways at the end of the tenth standard. Insurance was to me as removed from EngLit as Plato’s poets were from reality but all the same I applied since I had nothing better to do and also to make my friend happy.

 On the day of the written exam I landed up at Sanskrit College, which I had confidently declared to be the centre, when asked by my father. On reaching the college on a Sunday morning I found the place to be almost closed devoid of any of the usual bustling signs of an exam centre. I checked my admit card and found it read Sanskrit Collegiate School. Was it not the same? Now where on earth was this place! I started asking a couple of people around and, as is usually the case in Calcutta, a whole lot of people came up with directions but not much of it registered in my nervous mind. One middle aged gentleman, wearing a lungi and shirt, carrying a small ‘thaili’ for his Sunday morning quota of fish and vegetables, asked me to follow him. In those days the newspapers and news channels did not bombard our minds till we are numbed with horrifying tales of 23 year olds getting molested and raped in broad daylight and so, without a second thought, I started to follow him. Those days were different… we trusted and helped strangers….there was reciprocity. I was running short of time but I followed this man through a maze of North Calcutta lanes and by-lanes till I reached the desired venue.

 May be today’s mothers will advise their daughters against talking to or  following a total stranger but those were far better times that we lived in. A complete stranger, who could have finished his morning ‘bajaar’ and gone home to enjoy his Sunday breakfast of ‘luchi and aloo chhenchki’  , took the trouble to help a young girl find her way to an exam centre to which she would never have made it on her own in time. That is the Calcutta we grew up and studied in.. Calcutta where students were loved, respected and cared for…schools and colleges where we enjoyed ourselves… streets where we could roam without a care!

New Delhi ,2001: Delhi, which has been designated as the rape capital of India in recent times, was my home for nine years. Even before stepping foot in the capital city, I was warned by my colleagues and friends in Calcutta of its taxi and auto drivers, its DTC buses and, in general, the low moral standards of the Dilliwallahs. A few months before I finally moved out of Delhi an incident occurred which has made me wonder whether one should make such sweeping generalizations about any city or its people.

It was a bitterly cold evening in December. On returning from office I found my mother-in-law looking pretty ill - her speech, her gait all looked abnormal and since she was a diabetic I thought of taking her for a check-up to her doctor. The cab I called for was not any fancy one you get to see these days but just an ordinary black and yellow Maruti van and the driver was an elderly Sikh with a long, flowing beard and white turban. He looked a lot like one of those Sikh Gurus whose photographs we are used to seeing. When I left house little did I know that this man would be my companion for the next eight or nine hours. The doctor advised immediate hospitalization .He spoke urgently on the phone and I did not know then that he was making arrangements to push out a recovering patient from the ICU of Batra Hospital to make place for my patient. I wanted to go home once and pick up a few stuff and make arrangements for my daughter who was alone but he was very clear that if I wanted to see my mother-in-law alive I should head for the hospital. And so the journey on an endless night began. The old Sardarji took us to the hospital, waited for me till I came out around 1.30 at night, drove me back to my house where I went to get some of the things I needed at the hospital and again drove me back to Tughlakabad from CR Park at 2.30 am  . No neighbour accompanied me though they had been kind enough to take care of my daughter the next two days till my husband, who was stationed in Mumbai, came to relieve me from the hospital. I paid the good man whatever I had left in my purse that night, which was not too much after all the hospital admission and medicines. He never charged me because, and even though I had not noticed earlier, he had turned off his meter long ago!

Mumbai, 2005: 26^th July 2005-this was the day Mumbai drowned. S.V.Road which connects the Western suburbs looked like one long, winding river. Santro and BMW cars were roof deep in water. The lamp posts had fallen, cars had hit against the dividers which were completely submerged. Huge stores belonging to big brands on Bandra’s Linking Road had their mannequins floating in waist deep water. The cloudburst which brought 1000 mm rainfall in a span of few hours spared none…. both the rich and poor suffered. That is probably the story of Mumbai…. a Divine hand acts as great leveller in this city-just as the slums co-exist beside the skyscrapers, the man travelling by train suffers as much as the man driving his Honda City.

The Harbour line train from CST had stopped even before reaching Bandra. People started jumping off the stationary trains. There was hope that a taxi or a bus might take us home. What we saw outside Bandra station was something we had not reckoned for. Everything was at a standstill. Nothing was moving. On the tracks were a long line of the Mumbai locals and on Linking Road was a long serpentine queue of BEST buses and cars. That’s when we began our walk. It was 5.30 in the evening. My companions were not people known to me, not friends or colleagues. They were not the usual “train friends” you shared seats with in the same compartment. They were just familiar faces who were among the millions who travelled daily in the same direction as me.

The rain was ceaseless…just kept on pouring… it had started around 12 noon and we had been let off from office at 3.30pm. As we walked on Linking Road, water was up to the waist. The divider in the middle of the road, separating the two way traffic, could not be seen. Umbrellas were of no use because by this time we were already soaked to the skin. We boarded a BEST bus with a hope that it might take us home…but the driver told us we could sit through the night for it would not move. My companions chose to stay. I had to go home… my daughter knew I was coming home. I had spoken to her last at 5.00 pm when I was in the train. The network was now jammed…there was no way I could connect. My husband was in London. My mother-in-law was sick and bed-ridden. The ayah who looked after her went home at seven every evening. Had she left for home? I got off the bus and started walking. By now it had become absolutely dark. Power had been turned off completely.

That is when I met this man. He was in his thirties. Hundreds of men and women were walking together, helping each other. Water level was rising. High-tide that evening was making things worse. Waves were hitting against our bodies while we pushed our way through. We all had to hold hands and form human chains to keep our balance and wade through water which had risen above the waist. This man offered his mobile saying there was network… but I could not connect. Landlines had all conked off. We changed our course from Linking Road to S.V.Road since near Juhu  the water level had risen up to the chest. This man remained by my side and with many others encouraged me to not give up and move on. We were all strangers but we had one goal and that was to reach home .He was carrying important papers from his office – maybe legal documents or cheques or cash. He held his folder with one hand above his head and the umbrella with the other. By the time we reached the S.V.Road and J.P.Road crossing at Andheri , it was past midnight. But here the Fire Brigade stopped us from going further… a little ahead four or five men had been swept away by the current in the water. Water on J.P.Road was almost neck high for me. This man, who like me, had to take this road to reach home offered to help me make my way despite the warnings but my courage failed me. I decided to wait with the Fire Brigade men who were arranging for shelter in a nearby school. He decided to move on with a few other men. He walked away holding the folder above his head. After waiting in the school building for a few hours, I moved out again around 4 a.m.with a few college girls and finally found my way home around five in the morning.

This was Mumbai known all over the world by various names…the “inhuman city”, “the maximum city”,  “the city that never sleeps”, “ the city where nobody has time”, “the city where if you fall people walk past you”. That night I saw the true spirit of Mumbai… that undying spirit …to not give up…to move on despite all obstacles….the compassion that it hides beneath its tough and “don’t care” exterior. People came out of their homes with water and food. Young boys from local slums came out and stood in the pouring rain near open manholes to warn people who were walking in the dark for miles. They tied ropes so that we could hold on to them and keep our balance in the surging waters. They stood with torches in their hands to light our paths. They were boys and men who had already lost all they had to the rains.

These are moments when your faith in man is restored. Goodness can stand up and say “I still rule the world.”

DS