Hailing a cab

The sun was shining brutally down in the busy city of Delhi. A sweltering summer day saw my family making its way through a poorly maintained railway station, where every centimetre was decorated with dirt and litter and every empty place was occupied by people and luggage. It was 12 o’clock in the afternoon and the minute I climbed off the train I realized that wearing jeans had been a bad decision.

We gathered our luggage and wove our way through the crowd. My father was praising a new cab system that had been initiated in many cities, including Delhi, and how easy it was for anyone to make their way from one place to another. He claimed that we would realize how efficient the system was once we went outside and at the drop of a hat were able to hail a cab and make our way to the airport, from where we had a scheduled flight home.

The airport, I thought. An air-conditioned place at last.

The heat was killing me. I would have given anything to reach the airport as fast as we possibly could. But I guess my father jinxed the efficiency of the cabs when he praised them as we made our way out of the station because the minute we stepped out onto the pavement, we found that there was no sign of any cabs there.

“No,” my dad claimed now, “There should be a couple of drivers zooming around the block. I’ll just make a call and they’ll be here to pick us up in no time.” He called up the company and the manager on the other end promised us we’d be picked up in five minutes.

I sighed and pulled the heavy bag pack off my back and set it on the ground. I hadn’t even brought a cap. I found a ledge in a corner and sat down. My brother plonked himself down beside me and began annoying me by pointing out weird strangers in the railway station — a man with a huge belly, identical twins sucking on identical lollipops, a group of foreigners in Indian attire complete with bindis on their foreheads and saris swishing about their ankles.

Five minutes spun into ten, and then fifteen. I began walking around aimlessly and shuffling my feet trying to hold back a remark about how we were being cheated. I guess the heat was getting to me.

With every second that passed, the torturous heat grew and my patience decreased.

Suddenly, my brother pointed to a fragile old lady with a hunch making her way out of the station. She had a suitcase double her size in her hands and she had to put all the strength she had into carrying it. Her skin was shrivelled with age and her eyes were marked with thick dusty glasses that needed wiping. She was wearing a sari that was torn in places.

“Dude,” my brother pointed, “She’s more a skeleton than a woman.”

I watched the old lady repeatedly glance back the way she had come as she made an effort to hail a rickshaw. But the rickshaw drivers either had other customers or pretended not to notice her.

Soon, she was joined by two well-built men who were carrying a blanket in the shape of a hammock between them. They passed right by where we were sitting and my heart stopped for a moment when I saw that they were actually carrying a boy who looked about nine years old in the blanket. He seemed to be unconscious and as weak as the old lady. His skin had rashes in places and he wore an old shirt and faded and torn trousers.

I caught my breath at the sight. The men joined the old lady near the pavement and hailed a rickshaw for her. They gently settled the sick boy into the seat and helped the lady, who I now realised was probably his grandmother, into the rickshaw, too.

Even though she was wearing thick glasses, I saw her eyes mist up as she joined her hands in gratitude to the men for helping her out.

They were only a few feet away, so I caught their conversation.

One of the men told her, “There is no need to say thank you. We were glad to help you out.”

She shook her head feebly and told them she would never forget their kind act.

The other man joined his hands too, and instructed the rickshaw driver, “Take her to the nearest government hospital. Be careful and drive slowly.” Then he turned to the woman and said, “I hope he gets better soon, I will pray for him.”

The rickshaw driver started the engine. They left behind a cloud of smoke from the rickshaw and a lucid impression in my mind.

I felt small all of a sudden as I watched the men make their way back into the station. I felt incredibly selfish for having sat there and cribbed just because a cab was ten minutes late. The gravity of troubles faced by that woman and her grandson was so much deeper than what I had to face every day. And then I saw a familiar yellow and green cab make its way into the driveway. The driver was apologising to my father about being late and complaining about how the streets were full of traffic. But my head seemed to be replaying the incident I had just witnessed. It seemed to be awakening a feeling of not just guilt, but a realization that I shouldn’t complain when small things didn’t go according to plan. The old lady had taught me that.

The men who helped her out had taught me that the pledge we recite every Independence Day in school as children isn’t just about mugging it up and reciting it for a day.

The men who helped her out had taught me that the pledge we recite every Independence Day in school as children isn’t just about mugging it up and reciting it for a day. Because when we say, “All Indians are my brothers and sisters,” we actually have to mean it and follow it in our everyday tasks.

We have to help fellow citizens out and not be so stuck up and unsatisfied all the time. We have to learn to just play the cards life deals us with, whether they’re bad or not. If you have a home to go back to every night, or even if you just have somebody that loves you at this particular moment, you’re lucky. You’re incredibly lucky.

At that moment I realized that I was actually grateful the cab had been late that particular day. Otherwise the incident I was a spectator to wouldn’t have awakened me in the way it did and I’d still be cribbing about other things as we made our way home. But that day was like a reminder of a lot of things.

I don’t know her name, I don’t know her grandson’s name, and I don’t even remember the faces of the men who helped her out. I just know that all of them helped me out that particular day by reminding me that I’m as lucky as I could possibly ever be to have all that I have today.