On my commute to the work-place, I would switch into a cab midway. There was this gentleman - about 70, skeletal and very frail with a long flowing beard whom everyone called ‘Chachaji’. He waited for me with his rickety Fiat at the same spot every morning and all the other cabbies knew that he ferried me to office. On days that he was delayed, I waited and out of respect for him, no other cabbie offered to sneak away his fare.
Now Chachaji was a chatty one and I always thought that given his health, it took quite some effort on his part. He told me about his home town, his farms and fields, his family and his life in Mumbai. I knew his daughter kept ill-health and he checked with me about medical terms the medics confounded him with which I explained to him after detailed Google searches. The rains would do in his cab, but he risked the water-logging to still ferry me to work.
And one day, Chachaji disappeared. The other cabbies told me it was the strenuousness of all-day cab driving and his ailing health that made him go back home. Over the months, I kept up my inquiry about Chachaji but there did not seem to be any more news about him.
Nothing out of the ordinary, I happened to change my route, lived for a while in another city and life went about as usual.
This morning,
I switched midway into a cab on another route. It was Chachaji in a brand new Santro. While I silently noted that his health had a bit of sheen, we both could not get over how we came upon each other once again, after two long years.
He told me that he had gone home for about 7 months. His daughter was now better but he was operated for a heart condition. He asked about how my parents were doing and he told me that today was the first Anniversary of his new cab for which I congratulated him. He told me that on returning to the city, he had inquired with the other cabbies about me, and that he remembered me every time he crossed my workplace. He dropped me to work once again this morning and we parted without ceremony with warm wishes for the other.
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We live in the age of Suhel Seth, of power familiarities, name-flashing and power connections. It passes by many without a sense of alarm, or with nonchalance how friendships and acquaintances can be commoditized, or perhaps conveniently traded.
On days that we are alone in a room in the solitary company of our thoughts - the tv shut, the laptop off, the phone on silent, it would do us well to reflect upon the simplicity and humility of these ties – ones that have neither benefit nor tangible implications in the real world.
The closer, the warmer and receptive we remain to cherishing them, the more morally alive we are.
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