Random Ramblings

The vegetable vendor yelled. It had been an hour since she ventured out in a somewhat posh locality to sell vegetables. This has been her routine since around a decade. She made a small profit in a day and on some good days the profit touched Rs 100 mark. But in most of the days it was much less than it. She managed few hundred rupees, usually breaching the Rs 1000 mark a month. That was barely enough to make her family earn a decent living. She had been living with her 3 children, which she had before leaving her abusive, alcoholic husband. Like many others she dreamed that her children will have good education. She was an illiterate but she understood the importance of education for good living. This was one of the reasons she did not allow any of her children to work, though occasionally they helped her. Today seemed a bad day. Not even a single buyer since an hour. Finally one lady showed up. She was a 30 something, stout, seemingly snobbish lady with loads of make up. She cam...

“ Churchgate", I said. He dumped my luggage into the boot space and went to the driver’s seat. He was a man probably in his late 50s, seemed like a person who hardy opened his mouth, so unlike many drivers who start blabbering the moment you step in the taxi. A tall man, with some hairs white, though they were mostly covered by a cap, rather a hat. His face wasn’t visible, especially in the dim light little after sunset. But fifteen minutes in the journey which would take probably an hour, his baritone voice started talking. He was quite amazed by the level of ignorance I had about Mumbai. I told him that I belong to a small town near Allahabad. He also belonged to Allahabad. And then came numerous discussions from government policies to sports to Indian economics. He revealed that he left his hometown in his 20s and is has been a long since then. He had a daughter who was married and a son who would be getting married shortly. However, I didn’t go deep into his personal life...

Few hours and it has been world of a difference. I had to catch a flight and to catch that I had to go to Delhi taking a 2 hour ride in general compartment of a train. In the general compartment, it was not much overcrowded, maybe 120 odd people in a bogie that can seat around 80 people. Not overcrowded by any standards in this part of world, and they all were comfortably adjusted at their seats. There was a teen smoking his beedi, who reluctantly put it off after I complained that it was causing uneasiness in me. Then there was that lady in her teens probably married who was hollering on probably everyone out there. Then there was a group of 3 ladies, of whom one was a grandmother, and 2 had probably 9 kids between them (I could count only till 9!). They seemed highly ignorant about where Delhi was and were reluctant to believe that they had still more than an hour before Delhi came. Yet they were adamant on being close to gate as they had kids and didn’t want to be left behind when...