(Inspired by true events)
This is about a boring routine train journey
from Tambaram-Chennai beach, which became so special that you are reading it
now. I happened to see 4 different
persons (whom most of us would have seen frequently in the electric train) in a
different perspective, that they actually changed my understanding about
people.
First
person is an elderly man in his 60s, lean body clad in a shabby vest and dhoti,
grayed and soiled hair, wrinkled face with big dark glasses, boarded the train.
He had a walking stick with bell in his left hand, which made me understood
that he is a visually handicapped person. He held a vessel in his right arm, with
coins creating jingling sound in it.
I thought he is
about to ask for alms. As he inched into the train, feeling the way through his
stick, a clear toned, high pitched voice began to sing an old classical MGR
song in Tamil. It was a motivational song. As I penetrated my eyes through the gaps I
found amidst the crowd, searching for the source of sound, I was finally able
to confirm that it was that old blind man’s voice.
Honestly his
song soothed the noisy and clumsy air inside the train. It warmed the soul and
refreshed the mood. The motivational song being sung by a visually handicapped nameless
old man, made me feel better compared to reading Robin Sharma or Shiv Khera’s
book.
He could have
sat in front of a temple begging for alms, but what he does in train singing, I
will not call it as begging. I will rather call it a one-man mobile concert on
wheels. We are obliged to pay money for him in return to the change his song
created in our soul and mood.
His survival means
something; it tells stories to people high in senses but in low in confidence.
I paid him for his song. He showed a gesture of blessing, even though he will
never know who I am or how much I gave him. Just like a god in temple, who
shows same gesture of blessing to all his disciples irrespective of the money
they drop in hundiyal.
He got down
after two stops from the station he boarded, and got in the next compartment. I
tried to keep looking at him until he went out of sight, but my view was
blocked by a woman in her late 40s getting inside the train with a big baggage.
As a decent citizen, I inquisitively looked into the bag. She caught me seeing
it and walked slowly near me…
To be continued on: 15/06/13
