Mumbai - An Addiction

In the cynical world we live in it’s all too commonplace to treat people who display affection publicly with anything from a snicker to contempt. While autowallahs are more dismissive and indifferent to couples who snuggle up, in the most platonic sense of the term, in the back seats during a trip through the by-lanes or highways of the city, they (autowallahs) run out of patience when one half of the couple has to be left somewhere and the couple takes forever to finish it’s good byes. And I can’t say that I blame them really. It’s one of those things you can’t help dishing out if you are a part of a couple.

But then there was this one time, quite, quite some time back, when I had to drop my girlfriend someplace and continue with the auto. And the autowallah behaved completely out-of-script. As I asked him to stop the auto at my girlfriend’s destination, (I had told the autowallah that one of us would leave there and I would continue the auto) and as soon as he pulled over his auto, he left and went about twenty feet away for no apparent reason. He was just standing there, gazing at stars and passing cars and trees and appreciating the beauty of the world, it seemed. It was clear he wanted to give me and my girlfriend some privacy for our farewell ritual. And when she left, he promptly came back and drove me away.

And that’s it. I never really thanked him. And he didn’t start of on a rant of how romantic a guy he was. He just silently drove and I paid the fare when I got off and that’s the last I ever saw of him. I can’t put in words what exactly I felt then. It wasn’t an overwhelming feeling of gratitude or anything of that sort. I guess it was just… hope… that there are some people who genuinely believe, and practice, the philosophy of “live and let live”. May his tribe increase! And world could be so much better a place to live in!

Labels: auto, farewwell, romance