MY GREENER PASTURE

It was one hell of a dull day, both weather-wise and my mood-wise. My stomach was still troubling me with spasms of acute pain after massive upset two days earlier. I was feeling terribly weak with sweat pouring down. The whole thing pulled me down so badly that I was undergoing a mental depression much contrary to my usually effervescent disposition.

For days together, I had been getting a notice on my cell phone asking me to link my mobile number to my Aadhaar number by going to the nearest dealer. But that morning, I heard that the process had started. There was a rush of adrenalin and I rang up Channel 9 to see if they would do it for me. On their denial, I googled a ‘Bangalore One’ branch listed on Internet. There again there was denial, but a kind lady told me that the other branch at Jayanagar 2 block was doing it and she was patient enough to give me its location.

I took an ‘’auto’’ and hurried to the said Centre, only to find that they had a system of distributing 40 tokens between 8 and 8.10 in the morning and only those with the tokens would be entertained that day. I tried to plead my age, indisposition and weakness to secure one more token. But, they said they were helpless as the machine uploaded only 40 cases per day. The manager, a young, sprightly lady asked me to come next morning early enough to secure the token and that she would see to it that I would be attended to early.

Thoroughly defeated by the failure of the day’s project, I stopped an ‘’auto’’ and headed home. As soon as I sat in the vehicle, the driver started his saga. He told me that he had to undergo a surgery following an accident and that he had returned home only 4 days earlier. Though the surgeon had prescribed a month’s rest at home, necessity had driven him on to the job and that I was his first customer of the day. When I tried to compliment on his beautifully done up vehicle, he told me it was a hired one- hired out of a fleet of 13 such autos. In spite of the noise of the engine and the traffic, his story moved me. In fact, when I paid the fare with a small tip, I noticed that he supported his limp right hand with the left and received the amount.

Once I got home, I asked my maid servant casually if she had change for a 100 Re. note. Tears slowly filled her eyes as she narrated her tale ‘’Amma, today someone stole my purse containing Rs 2500 from the bag I had left outside when I went to work inside. I lost my monthly salary from two houses at one go. Someone who had watched where I leave my bag must have been waiting for my pay day to do good with the lot.”

After hearing the driver’s and the maid’s stories, I found my blues slowly vaporising. I found that I could ill-afford to wallow in self-pity when there was so much more misery around me.

Thanking the Lord for small mercies, my spirits slowly started rising.

ps- cartoon courtesy Shutterstock.

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