Some experiences move us so much that we are left spellbound. I have had the privilege of quite a few of such experiences and here I shall try to put down one of them.

It was sometime during the monsoon of 2014. I was returning from Dankuni. The train was late and by the time I reached Howrah it was around 11:30 in the night. From there I took a bus and reached Behala Chowrasta around 12:30. Then I could not find any vehicle to rich my house. Unwillingly then I had to take a walk. I had walked almost a kilometer when a man, who had covered his face with a towel, blocked my way. He held a knife in his hand pointing, towards me and asked me to take out my purse. I took out the purse and by that time a lorry happened to pass from the opposite direction. The headlight of the lorry helped me to take out the money. I took it out and told him that I had only 240 rupees. The man said in a grim voice “keep it.” 

I was very nervous then and told the man that if he wanted I could draw more money from the ATM and give him. The man seemed to be uninterested and told me to go. I could not believe him, but I started moving. Unfortunately there was a pot-hole, I stepped into it and tripped over. Immediately the man came up to me and said “what sir, what have you done?”

My right knee was badly bruised, I was reeling with pain, and the man gave me support, lifted me up and made me sit outside a closed shop. He then took out his hand-kerchief and cleaned my wound. Then he took out a small box from his pocket and applied some lime paste on my wound. During all this I kept amazingly looking at the man, because only a few minutes earlier he was trying to terrorise me and now he was nursing me. As I was looking at him intently, he tightened his mask and just said “Don’t worry sir, it is only out of humanity. We too have feelings but the society has made us what we are.”

I asked him if he was alone. He took a deep sigh and replied, “When you are alone you don’t have to have emotions, it is only when you are not alone that you are caught in the web of emotions” 

For some time we both remained silent. Then, I took out my cigarette pack and offered him a cigarette. He took it from me. Then I again asked him, why he was into such a profession. He thought for a moment and replied that he used to work as a guard in an apartment, but it has been three months since they discontinued his service. So since the last three months he has been doing many odd jobs to sustain his family. But then his wife fell ill and for her treatment expenses, he was forced to do the nasty things. As the man was talking he felt like lighting the cigarette, but could not as for that he needed to unmask himself. But by that time another vehicle passed, and from the light that fell on his face I could see his moistened eyes. There was truthfulness in them. By this time I felt that I knew the man, but did not want to reveal as that would have embarrassed him. We sat there for another fifteen minutes. Then luckily we found an auto-rickshaw, the man helped me to sit in it and went away.

The next morning after I had finished my first tuition class, I asked one of my students to call Suresh. He went and brought Suresh along with him. I asked Suresh why he was absent to the class. He answered that his mother was very ill. I asked him if he had brought medicine. He kept quiet I gave him two thousand rupees and told him to get medicine for his mother. Suresh took the money silently and started to go. I called him and told him that I would not excuse him, if he missed any more classes. Unknowingly I experienced a shiver in my throat and my eyes getting moistened.

In 2019 Suresh passed his B.E and is now working in a multinational company in Bangalore. 

                                                                - Anupam…