Scenes of Mumbai

Scene 1.

The man was broken. He was sitting curled up at the edge of the road, with his one foot in the drain trying to avoid falling into it completely. His face is contorted with a deep grief that I hadn't felt before or even imagined.

I am waiting for my bus back home, stationary, beguiled by this man’s angst. With a mammoth effort, he moves slightly and I discover a huge gash on his entire foot, running from his knee to his ankle, bleeding profusely. I ask a bookseller nearby about him. I am told that that morning something ran into him and in desperation, he put his leg into the drain for some relief and has been there since.

Scene 2.

I am in the train standing in the passageway taking support from the edge of the seat. There is a young boy of about seven in front of me holding onto a Rs. 5 packet of Cadbury bytes. Dressed in a clean shirt and pant, standing politely next to his mother, he is trying endlessly to open the packet until he simply cannot find the strength in himself to do so anymore.

Meanwhile, a slender, tall girl with hip hugging jeans and a Dell bag looks at the small boy. Without a word transacted, he hands her the packet and she with her well-manicured hands tries to open the packet with as much finesse as possible.

The girl continues to struggle. An aged tribal woman dips her hand into her plastic bag and hands the Dell girl her betel knife. The girl reluctantly takes it. The job is done, the boy is smiling, the girl is amused, I am humbled and Andheri arrives.

Scene 3.

I am getting out of the rickshaw near my building. As I am paying the rickshawwala, I notice an old raggedy man sitting on the pavement shivering. Between shivers, he is skimming off the upper layer of a food mixture in a transparent plastic bag. He is carefully removing the fungus, so he can eat his fill today.