There is
just one main street in that village called Holi. The bus to Vasai Railway Station
arrived at the bus stop every hour.
People
waited in long queues at the bus stop under the shade of an aged tree. Some of
them had brought something to read. Men discussed politics and cricket. Young
girls and boys glanced at each other shyly. Children hankered for sweets and
ice lollies from the hawkers with handcarts. Women knitted or chatted. Some
people had five rupees ready for the bus fare. They glanced at their
wristwatches every now and then with worried expressions. There were all types
of people there waiting for the bus.
Across the
street was a rickshaw stand. Not everybody could afford a rickshaw as the
rate was twenty rupees for a trip to the railway station. So usually there were
just a few rickshaws which waited near the bus stop. The two restaurants
opposite the bus stop, Laxmi Vilas and Bhagwati Vilas, intentionally fried
sweet and savoury snacks outside so that the aroma of batata wadas and jilebis
filled the nostrils of people waiting wearily in the queue. The restaurants made
brisk business as people requested others to hold their places in the queue
while they ate snacks and drank tea. Some customers even carried take-aways: hot
snacks in oily packages of newspaper tied up with string.
Next to the
two restaurants were a barber shop and a shoe-repair shop. The shoe-repair shop was
closed. A beggar sat on its stone step. He eyed the people in the queue as he
ate his samosa. Their impatience made him smile.
He hobbled
across to the other side of the street on his crutches. Spreading out his hands
in front of the formally dressed gentleman who was first in the queue, he said,
“Bhagwan ke naam pe de de, baba” – please help me in the name of god. The
gentleman, irritated after repeated pleas, finally gave him a rupee. The beggar
stepped ahead to the lady who stood second in the queue. She was already harassed
by her howling baby. She gave him a rupee and shooed him off lest he touched
her baby with his dirty hands.
The beggar
moved from person to person collecting a rupee or two here and there. There
were more than a fifty people waiting for the bus in that long winding queue so
the beggar had collected a good amount by
the time he reached the end of the queue. The bus was late that morning.
The beggar
crossed over the street and hobbled to the rickshaw stand. “Vasai Station,
please!” he told the driver with authority and stepped in. The rickshaw zoomed
off leaving a cloud of dust which slowly moved towards the people in the queue.
(This story
is based on a local joke heard at the bus stop.)
