“Subhash” – an attempt to un-‘FOIL’ life !

 “He is alive” – this is the first thought that came to my mind whilst I saw Him after almost a sabbatical of six months – His demeanor was a mesmerizing as it was earlier, and he was at his talkative best. He spotted me in the weekly mart and called me “Bhaiya, how are you?, All well at home?” . I relied in the same tone and enquired about his whereabouts since the lockdown happened.

He told his sordid story with a smiling glance – his passion for living life with smile all the time has been his uniqueness, that is what has attracted me in his character. I have known ‘Subhashji” since decade now and he has not changed a bit, though the fragilities of body has started to appear on his persona. His hair have become salt and pepper so has his moustache, but looking at him, he has continued to empress his customers with his marketing skills and the mix and match products he sells on his movable trolley!

Meeting after so many days, he has still not changed his business preposition and he continues to sell tissue papers or foil papers of all shapes and sizes, his insistence to passers-by to buy his sell is always on an encouraging note. He cracks jokes according to situations and quite enthusiastically compares his products with that of what is being sold in regular shops – though having bought his sell earlier, I have been a thorough acknowledger of this fact that his products are of equal footage, if not inferior in quality – not to forget that they are priced far below the retail price of malls and regular shops.

Subhashji has been conscientiously living in these tough times with his family – consisting of two young boys and his wife. One of his son is studying in class 12 and is attempting his board exams; the other one is in class 7^th, his only worry is , though his elder son is study-focused but lack of laptop or a high end mobile phone has become an impediment in his studies and he has to skip some of his online classes for lack of continues source of internet. He knows how important it is to make his kids educated as he himself is a school dropout, though his story of doing so is completely different of his times.

Nowadays I see him moving through the by lanes of service lanes and overstretches his working hours – the reason for this conduct is quite obvious. The trial and tribulations of destiny has made him outreach his earning acumen and he has to work overtime to make ends meet.

“There are few customers now a days Bhaiya – they don’t buy street products out of fear of corona – though I have kept sanitizer in my cart but its is tough to convince them, it is only my dedicated customers who buy from me!” – I can well understand his predicament and had full sympathy with him whilst he retorted to my prodding of his business condition.

The time came and we exchanged formal goodbyes to meet again hale and hearty, not before obeying to his clarion call to shop from his cart, for me it has always been an honor to do so as it is not his genteel smile that makes your day but the effort and the strong vision he has for his life and his growing children.