Lost in the Crowd

There are millions of faces we come across everyday. But we end up forgetting most of them. This story concerns one such face.

I can still very well recall the debilitating pain that shot through both my legs when the iron grills rammed into my left leg, leaving two big wound marks which had to be dressed up. After actually having a peep at the deep wound, my fears about it being a fracture had thankfully dissipated.  My right shoe had taken a trip into the empty gutter area, as the grill left behind a shallow cut below my right leg and the college nurse advised me to get a tetanus injection by the evening, or within 24 hours at least. I had never sustained a leg injury as agitating as this one, to be entirely honest but just because I had fallen prey to a gutter, the feeling of it being embarrassing aroused just as well. Friends at college, of course knew how it had happened and apart from chuckling on hearing how it had transpired, they had decided to deliver some amount of sympathy towards this limping lanky. And standing sometimes seemed too much of an ask for me, let alone walking.

And thanks to this short series of events, I was forced into taking an auto rickshaw to commute to my hostel from college which were almost half a kilometer apart. Ankit and Harshil had complained about growling stomachs and rats playing football in there, and had decided to turn left into SG Palya Cross 1, leaving me behind at the most inappropriate of times. I was just utilizing a skim of both the left part of my right foot and that of the ground to somehow trudge, and now I was supposed to do that alone. But thanks to the willingness of reaching my hostel, which was lurking inside me since morning, I found the way to do it. The SG Palya auto stand, which had earned a knack for being one of the most desirable places to pick up from among Christites, was exactly where I was, well standing.

The usual line of autowallahs, some smoking bidis while others having their heads dug up in the newspaper, was just beside me and that was the best option I had. I lowered my back and asked an autowallah, who was busy reading a Kannada newspaper of some sort, "Can you drop me off at CST Vidya Bhavan bhaiya?". As far as I can remember, he had a long face, light complexioned and had a traditionally and culturally irrelevant 'tika' across his forehead. CST Vidya Bhavan chaloge bhaiya?

The perfect moment of climax comes in when a North Indian tries to speak Hindi when conversing with a person from Bangalore and we began to ponder upon whether that person knows the same language as we do. I bet, most Hindi speakers and non- Kannada speakers have a tad bit of idea about that. I wonder the same whenever I come across a shopkeeper or a mere autowallah such as this one.

" Yeah. Sure. Hop in. " He said in an almost dignified tone, shuffling across the auto surface and keeping his newspaper away. Haan. Zaroor Chalenge

 Thank God he knows Hindi and didn't utter gobbledygook

"How much would you charge?" I spoke, with almost half of my voice drowning in a car's honk and the trademark Bangalore chaotic traffic noises. I shifted my body weight to the left leg. Kitna loge?

The usual charge ranged from thirty to forty, and it was directly proportional to the number of passengers on board, in pure mathematical terms.

"Thirty". He uttered, with the red betel nut clearly visible inside his mouth. As soon as he sputtered the syllable 'th' , I hopped in. After all, misers are found in every nook and corner of this world.

Almost hundred bucks were in my chest pocket, I was just a percent less than cent percent sure of that. The auto wheeled to its right and we were off. I had to straighten my left leg, such that it didn't act as a pain in the leg and a pain in the bottom at the same time. 

People. People and more people passed by the auto, as it zoomed past them. I don't remember seeing an acquaintance or a friend on my way to the hostel. People I don't remember and people I don't care about were sprinkled like salt on a salad all over SG Palya, at eateries and all sorts of hang out places. People, slender and fat. People, swarthy and light in complexion. People, with varying physical features. People, sky high rich and downtrodden, poor. Nobody seemed to peculiar enough to embed themselves into my memory and nobody, I'm sure bothered doing the same.

As soon as we turned right towards the Yummio cafe, which is my preferred place for chugging up a bread omelet and a glass of my favorite Oreo shake, I decided to take out the thirty bucks from my pocket. I had stuffed a hundred rupee note into my chest pocket, and not into my purse during the college break.

But, my hand found nothing but a useless, crumpled piece of toffee wrapper as it scoured the pocket. It was one of Ankit's jackass pranks, which I somehow liked to trouble others. The money wasn't there and bringing money from my hostel room after de-boarding the auto seemed out of the question for someone who could barely walk. I pulled out my purse from my buttock pockets to check for some money. I really hoped that I found the required amount of money in there, such that I couldn't bear the pain of walking.

By a slice of luck or fortune, I found twenty bucks sitting readily in my purse. But the truth was- twenty bucks were still found wanting and I had begun imagining myself trudging up and down the hostel, in a disabled state.

The auto skidded to an abrupt halt in front of the CST Vidya Bhavan gate and my efforts to dig out ten from somewhere had gone in vain. I felt it clearly wasn't my day.

I handed over the twenty bucks to the autowallah. "I'll ask someone to hand over the ten bucks from my hostel. I'm injured and I can't walk" I spoke the words in a manner which seemed to demand sympathy. 

The autowallah skimmed through the two notes and gave a perplexed look before I clarified the matter. He quietly kept the two notes in his pocket and kept on chewing on the betel nut.

"Never mind. I saw how you were struggling to walk before hopping in" He said. 

"Arrey. No problem. I'll ask my roommate to come down and hand you over your ten bucks." I argued softly. But what he said next really made me recoil.

"Ten bucks are nothing for me. Your well being is far more important. Just remember my face, and hand me over the ten bucks someday later."

"But..." before I could squawk out another word, he interrupted " Just remember me. I'm at the auto stand everyday at 4."

 

Whatever this man said hit me hard. It came like a flash of lightning on a bright sunny day. Weeks passed, I could never find this man ever again. Even if I did, he ended up being one of those we walk past every morning to night, without giving a damn about what they are or who they are. He was among those people who believed more in humanity than in the modern day mercenary attitude everyone abides by. Despite of that, he was lost in the crowd of people we walk past every day but their faces never carry a place in our minds, one way or another. Ordinary men, who from outside seem more engrossed in themselves and in what they do, or even helpless destitutes hardly garner any apparent attention. Here I was, making him a case of being another 'somebody' who I cared about for just those ten minutes when he was carrying me to my hostel. At the end of the day or after my destination was reached, or after my purpose was fulfilled, this man did win my heart but in a world full of 'somebodies', this autowallah's identity became obscured just because he belonged to that group of people we come across every day but hardly bat an eye at what they do or how they are.

"