My drive to work takes me underneath the NH-8 highway in Gurgaon. Traffic on this cantilevered behemoth flows by on cement pillars, toll-paying drivers unaware of the ground-level chaos that segregated from their smooth ride above: cars and rickshaws and cycles and traffic cops and homeless migrants jostling for space and passage and attention, everyone in a hurry and nobody moving at all.
In the cumulative hours I’ve sat at this eternal intersection, I’ve memorized the scene. I know the ripped circus posters; I know the cops with their Rajasthani mustaches curled up their cheeks; and I know the people who call the weedy median home: the old men, the tired women, the energetic children, the girl with the full-length skirt smeared with dirt but not enough dirt to hide the vibrant mustard yellow of the material.
We all share the same daily ritual: I sit in my car, the cops wave at us to wait or wave at us to go, the engines idle, the rickshaws weave through the cars; and the migrants sit and stare or walk through traffic and beg.
Last Wednesday, some new people joined the ritual: a woman, her naked son, and her battered suitcase.
She had the look of a person in transit. Her pale blue outfit shone through the dust that engulfed her suitcase completely. Squatted on the cement wall of the median, she was clearly waiting for someone. Her face spoke anticipation and excitement and even her son, young as he was, seemed to share. His posture was stunning: he sat straight up, a naked three-year-old with the manner of a guard at Buckingham Palace.
I wondered about her as I drove slowly past. What was she waiting for — A bus? A bike? Her taxi-driving son, making it big in the big city? – and how long would she be waiting? I imagined sitting on a pre-arranged corner at a pre-arranged date, waiting for someone, with no mobile to call my ride and no magazine to kill the time, far from home, with no way to know if the ride would be late and nowhere to go if the ride didn’t show. I have forgotten life before cell phones.
Seven hours later, there she was. Still.
I was returning from a celebratory lunch with my boss and my partner. Our bellies were full of what had been their first taste of sushi. Her face hit me. Her face jolted me.
It was the face of a person who’d been squatting in dust and exhaust for seven straight hours. She looked miserable. Her son drooped next to her, a flower that hadn’t been watered. I don’t think she’d moved. How could she had moved? I wouldn’t have moved. If she’d moved, she’d always wonder: had her ride came while she was gone?
The next morning, there she was. Still.
15 responses so far ↓
Laksh // August 25, 2008 at 3:24 pm |
Touching. Very well captured.
MD // August 25, 2008 at 10:27 pm |
Heartbreaking. Oh please, oh please, I hope her ride came, sometime!
(We take so much for granted in our lives, don’t we?)
ke // August 26, 2008 at 12:52 am |
Why didn’t you stop and give her and her son some water or some food?
jenny and dave // August 26, 2008 at 3:43 am |
(Jenny here)
Dave did bring her food and water. He just didn’t want to put it in the story because it seemed self-serving.
Quirky Indian // August 26, 2008 at 5:29 am |
So did you see her again?
Quirky Indian
http://quirkyindian.wordpress.com
camilian // August 26, 2008 at 5:31 am |
wow.. heartbreaking
jenny and dave // August 26, 2008 at 6:38 am |
I went by that intersection yesterday morning, she wasn’t there.
sands // August 27, 2008 at 1:51 am |
This brought back so many similar memories of the faces which used to blankly stare at our school bus at the signal light. Like every parent, there seemed a desire in those eyes, for their kids who would probably never get to ride a school bus. They would just stare at us. We, the ones in the bus were fortunate lives by virtue of not being born on a foot path. It is heart wrenching but when we see this everyday, it just simply becomes something stationary, like the passing trees on a road that only get noticed when they are gone.
Russ // August 28, 2008 at 3:12 pm |
As always, guys, your stories move me.
onparkstreet // August 28, 2008 at 10:59 pm |
I don’t think it’s self-serving to mention those details, but, again, you don’t need to mention everything on a blog
Anyway, thanks for these glimpses into your experience and your gentle humanity.
(I haven’t been back in years; most of my close family has emigrated to the US. I should go back one of these days).
Apar // August 31, 2008 at 12:42 pm |
Count our blessings big time?! There was a friend of mine who cribbed that she did not have a cell phone when she went into her teens!
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indiainmotion // January 22, 2009 at 4:41 am |
This is great Dave!
jugaad « Our Delhi Struggle // October 7, 2009 at 8:06 am |
[...] left us exhausted and claustrophobic. It’s the hope for the future that lets a woman and her son spend two days waiting on a median for someone to pick them [...]