~ Raju Bangaya Gentleman...~

Today, I saw Raju after a long time, he has been a helping hand during that devastating ‘Pandemic Month’ last April – May’21, where the streets were empty and one can only hear the noise of that Ambulance siren – an ominous sign of deciding someone’s fate.

He was rock solid support as he used to come with full preparation and always had his stack full of all those necessary fruits and vegetables apart from other things, which a usual vegetable and fruit seller normally didn’t had on his cart – Items such as water bottles, Bread, Butter and even milk!

Money was not a problem for him, as many of us didn’t had the time or for that matter the courage to go to an ATM or bank to fetch money – so was the psychological effect Covid had jutted in our minds and souls – Raju had a turnaround for such a problem, he used to get a slip for each household and snipped an image for the day’s buy and whatsapped us all – really he made use of technology to have a contactless business model for the benefit of all – first time in my life I was seeing technology being used to its optimum other that what Whatsapp university is now famous for!

Raju is a native of a village in Bihar and stays with his family – two kids and his father, mother – I asked him, did not he risked his life and also of his family members whilst he used to come and provide his services to the entire block – many of Delhi residents were covid +ve and unfortunately deaths were the norm of the day. As he reverted, “ Sir, I took it as an opportunity to help people, I am not literate, I could sense the suffering of people prisoned in their homes and were fearful of the situation, you must not be knowing, I helped such old people who would have otherwise died of hunger – there were literally no one to help or assist them as their children were stuck up in other countries and could not come – these oldies gave their mobile numbers to them and they used to call me from foreign lands to supply their parents their general dose of groceries and even medicines…”

After the pandemic was over, they superlatively acknowledged my services and one of them even called me their 2^nd Son – that was my Karma, my biggest achievement in my life, I did all this selflessly as I took upon myself to help these oldies who could not afford to risk their life and go out and fetch their daily take of groceries, medicines and other paraphernalia… I thought them to be their son and did it…

The experience which Raju told me was just phenomenal, here was a guy who risked his life and saved the lives of so many without showcasing a whiff of his doings during the most trying days of Covid, when many people dreaded to go out , he boldly  took the onus upon himself to portray a son, brother, father and other namesake responsibility to many known and unknown souls who would not have survived this surge of pandemic.

Now that he comes to our block, he is caressed like a son and a brother to many households, he is received with open arms as he has been their life’s savior – His smile says it all, as he is busy adjusting his vegetables on his cart, with all his humble living but great thinking attitude, I always love to call him “ Raju Bangaya Gentleman’ to which he smiles and says, “ Kya bhaiya aap bhi na…” … Though he is Camera Shy, but what he did for all of us would be dreaded for many...that’s humanity…!!!