Sitting on a Tea-Stall, I see a frail looking gentleman adjusting his bicycle on the roadside pavement and taking out some paper teacups and handing over them to a tea-vendor. Many of us would not imagine working at this age of our lives but what test of time exemplifies defies all logic.
He has having a phenomenal
strength at his age of life and paddles through the streets of Delhi for about
20 to 30 kms per day. His ‘Sell’ is paper cups and glasses which he sells to
street vendors and roadside hawkers.
Mahesh Uncle has had a beautiful
past as he describes when I started to converse to him – A Teetotaler that I
am, I met him by chance as I was whisking a tea-cuppa with great cherish. He
was parking his vehicle – a bicycle which he proudly tells us that he bought
with his own ‘hard earned’ money.
Reminiscing his past with great
encouragement, he tells us that he was a government employee and was working as
a lower divisional clerk at Government of India Press. He has had a great life
with a good family – which comprises of two sons and his wife for 38 years now.
He lovingly call her “Lakshmi”. On further prodding as to why he is working at
this fragile age of his life, he should be sitting at home and enjoying the
benefits of retirement, he grows morose suddenly and starts to become sarcastic
in nature.
Quite poignantly he tells us that
he has started to call him a big failure in life as he was not able to convince
his two sons to be with him at this fag end of his life. Both of his sons were
educated with much hardships ( being a single earning member of a family of
four) and they were made to do professional courses with his hard earned money
– both of his ‘Competent’ sons ( as he still proudly talks about them) have
left him for a comfortable and chasing life-dreams. He stays in his two room Janta flat in Delhi and for them, his dwelling was short of a curated life.
This came as a shocker to him and his wife and they were suddenly left to fend
for themselves at this dark hour of life. With meagre savings left, he has no
option to work now and bring food on the table every day. The story still
lingers on the fact that though his sons send some money back home, but still
the craving of love and attachment towards their only hope of old age have left
them for a mirage of life.
Thoroughly sipping his tea-cuppa he abruptly utters “Beta, Its by God’s grace that I am hale and hearty and ticking at this age of my life. God is certainly kind! My only tension is about my wife, what will happen when I am no more in this world?” His so called “Knowns’ have left him for good, for a better proposition(s) and a good life not believing in the fact that what they are living is ‘GOLD’,
He is happy that at this age he
has a companion – His wife, who is hale and hearty too and is living with him,
though with meagre means and always thankful to God.
Mahesh uncle, quickly puts his
cup down as he finishes his Tea and after collecting daily money from the
Tea-vendor, seats himself on his bicycle only to paddle away to his next
destination – a probable tea-vendor may be 2-3 kms away only to tell as story
of fortitude and despair which he never though he would see in his life whilst
he worked hard to give his sons a better future!
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