Humanity Pays Off

It was just another day. After a very hectic workload in the company, I was very much tired. At that time there were mobiles but not with common people. The Internet had started its influence and was capturing human beings like the British had captured India in history. Being an engineer, now I think you waste half of your youth life just thinking of job search, job change over, and its frustration. Unknowingly I started my journey on the same path. 

Having tired though, I went to café… no..no not café coffee day. I went to an internet cafe to search and apply for jobs. This had become my daily routine to go to a cyber café and search for a job. 

One fortunate day, I got a call for an interview. It was in some area in Pimpri Chinchwad. I was needed to go by city bus. As usual, I lied to my boss and got leave for health reasons. I went for the interview and it was good. But they told me that they will inform me results in one or two days. I was hopeful. With lots of thoughts in mind, I was walking on the road towards the bus stop. 

I always had a habit of observing people at the bus stop. I feel that every person on road has their own life stories and I like to know them. At the bus stop, you get a lot of exposure to such unlimited and unique stories. These stories are always a combination of family drama, love stories, and some comedies. I always had a dream of writing up these stories on paper. But due to workload and lack of due diligence, I never did.

I did not know that one such story was waiting for me to involve myself as a character of it. I reached the bus stop and sat down on a chair waiting for my bus. It was 3 p.m. There was little crowd, as for some time no bus had come for Hadapsar where I wanted to go. Near to bus stop, two or three auto-rickshaws (local private three-wheeler taxi) were available. Some people were seated on chairs, some were standing on the road and some were just seating on steps of the bus stop.

In the Maharashtra state of India, there is a religious system, in which some people go for pilgrimage to Pandharpur (a famous God Vitthal Temple is at Pandharpur). This pilgrimage journey is mostly by walking. They normally take very little luggage and money. Many of them are from poor families. They are called Warkari. These warkari's many a times don't get food on time due to lack of money. Their life depends on help by local people on the way. One such warkari, an old man in his 70's, was sitting near me. I thought he was also waiting for the bus.

The atmosphere was very pleasant. But still, the old person was looking very exhausted. A thought came into my mind that maybe he needed water. Before I ask him for water, he just felt giddiness and he held my hand & said, 'Can you take me to a doctor? I have money.' He gave me one small piece of paper on which the name of the doctor was written and also shown me his wallet with only Rs.50 in it. I served a little water to him and said, "I don't know this doctor. He is from which area?" But he was not able to answer anything. I thought the Rickshaw driver may know the doctor. So I asked them. Nobody knew this doctor. From them, one said, he can drop him in government hospital which is nearby, thinking that I only wanted to go to a doctor. But then, I explained to them "Please, the old man, warkari, is not feeling well. If not treated on time, he may collapse on road. He has little money by which he will pay for your rickshaw bill if you just drop him to the government hospital." 

But all of them refused. I said to them, "Don't you people, have any humanity sense?" One young fellow replied to me, "This person is alone. He is not well. If I take him in the rickshaw, and if something happened to him who will be responsible for that. I don't want this unnecessary risk. You will go home safely by involving us in risk." I was astonished by his words as I did not even think of this situation from this angle. He further said, "Will you come with me to drop him as you are talking of humanity and all sort of things? Nobody comes, Sir!" Without waiting for a second, I said, "yes, I will come!" 

Now, he had no option other than to take the old person to the hospital. We (me and the Rickshaw driver) put him in a rickshaw to take him to the hospital. I thought the Rickshaw driver will drop us at the hospital, take the money and go. But I did not know that he was a God's own man with the face of the common man. During traveling to the hospital, I started questioning him like if he knows how to admit him? Where to admit him?  It was my first time going to any hospital on my own. Till now, I went to the hospital either with parents or relatives in childhood. We reached to hospital. I said to the old person, "Grandpa, the hospital has come." I asked the Rickshaw driver, "How much money I need to pay?" But to my surprise, he said "We will see later, first, we need to leave him in the hospital." We got down from the rickshaw and proceeded to the hospital. 

                    Till now, all three of us did not know the name of each other. But now, we required the old person's name to admit him. He was not in the condition to say anything. The rickshaw driver said he will have some I.D. in his bag. Before I say anything, he found out also ID which he had only shown to the reception and told the scenario that we found him at the bus stop in bad condition. She made his papers after payment of some fee which was paid by me. We took him to the doctor who checked him and said he had some BP problem and need to admit it immediately. We explained to the doctor the situation about him. Then he said as there is no relative with him, he cannot just admit him. Then we went to meet the senior Doctor. He referred to meet the Dean of the hospital. We went to Dean's cabin and explained to him the full story of the person. The Dean was a very generous person. He just wrote on paper "poor free" and told us to admit him.  I thanked him and came out. We both felt relaxed as now we could admit him. 

                             We admitted him and we told the nurse that we would leave him there and asked to take care of him. The nurse said very irritatingly, "this person is so dirty. We will have to wash him first thoroughly." I kept quiet. They allotted a bed for him. But he was not ready to sleep in bed as they wanted to give the injection. By this time, we became famous in the hospital's general ward. All the other patients' relatives came to him and started telling him "these people have done so much for you.  Why are you behaving like this?" Somehow Nurse managed to give him an injection and make him sleep there on the bed. I just looked around for the Rickshaw driver who was there with me up to the allotment of bed. Suddenly he disappeared.  I thought he left. A social service department lady came to me and enquired about the old person. By the time I was talking to the lady, I saw the Rickshaw driver came back with fruits like Grapes & bananas with him which he handed over to the person on the bed. After handing over the fruits, he came to us. He asked me to come aside and said, "We have done whatever possible. Now they will take care of him. Now it's time to leave." 

We both came out. He said, "I will drop you at the bus stand".  On the bus stand, I asked him about the charge for the total journey. He just laughed and said, "Humanity pays off."

Story: real life story 

Pic. Credit: Mid-day