Rough Hands

Today, I was getting late for the office. I had to take three interviews this morning, and I was already 40 minutes late. Late night tweeting does takes its tolls! I was driving fast, making sure speed needle doesn't come below 80KM/H. Few people were driving slowly. A thought came in my mind - "What losers - slowing down the traffic behind. Why can't they maintain at least 60!"

As I almost reached office, while taking a U-Turn to the gate, a biker gave me a sign that there was something wrong in my car. "The wheel cover must have come out again, arghh" - I said to myself, and stopped the car slowly till it stopped in front of a dhaba. I came out and looked at the back of the car. The wheel cover had not come off, instead the tyre was deflated (looked punctured to me). Suddenly, driving slowly started making sense to me! The dhabawala told me that just ahead of the U-Turn, there is a puncture shop. Lucky me!

I walked to the puncture shop. Not exactly a shop. 4 big tyres kept on top of each other and another big tyre hanging, signalling the drivers about the puncture shop. The guy was sleeping on a mattress at the ground in front of a makeshift aluminium shack. Perhaps relaxing, or perhaps tired of waiting of someone to ask him for his service.

"भईया !!" I called. And he woke up. "Flat tyre है "
"कहाँ??"
"वो खाने वाले के सामने" - Indicating that dhaba.
"कौन सा खाने वाला?"
"अरे उधर ... कंपनी के सामने"
"किधर?"
"अब चलो  दिख जाएगा!"

So we started walking. The sun was hot but wind was good, so didn't feel much hot. Soon we reached the Car.

"ये कौन सा खाने वाला है ... ये तो होटल है!!" - He said
"अच्छा जो  आप कहें। " - Just hurry up and do it, I said in my mind.

So he started jacking up the car, took out the stepney. Started to work. There was some small talk you would find boring.

While taking out the nuts, he felt some pain. I took a look at his hand. They were black. Not just black, they had cuts. Deep back cuts.

"साहब, ये tyre dust से हुआ है।"
"WTF" -  I thought
"साहब, जोर लगाने पर बहुत दर्द होता है । ज्यादा दम लगा नहीं सकते। बहुत बार खून भी आ जाता है "
"तो रात को हाथ में कुछ लगा लिया करो।"

He didn't reply and kept on working.

I wanted to help him. Of course he had no money for any ointment. As my company is at the outskirts of the city, he won't be making much. Usually people take 50 or so to change a tyre. As we were at the outskirts of the city and he was my only help, I thought he would surely ask me of 100 Rs. Isn't that how business works?

Finally, changing of tyre was done. I asked him -

"कितना हुआ"
"Sir, 30 Rs" -- He replied
"That's reasonable" - I thought.

I handed him a note of Rs 100. The first look that he gave was "I have no change" ... later as he understood he was surprized.

"Doctor को दिखा देना ... कुछ लगा लेना हाथ में "
He was silent
"दारू पीते हो ?
"हाँ सर कभी कभी"
"इन पैसों से मत पीना
"ठीक है "

I closed the door and drove towards the 'SEZ' gate. As I looked behind, he was looking at that note and walking towards the Dhaba.

Perhaps since morning he was lying of hunger in his shack and now he would finally get something to eat.

Perhaps he won't spend money on Liquor and Medicine, but just on food.

Who knows ...

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Was it right to help him this way? What do you think?