Who were they?

More often than not, when we remember the past, its the small incidents that we remember. In many of my travels that life has taken me across India, complete strangers helped me, even without my asking, when help was needed the most. Most of them vanished as silently as they had come but left behind a few tracks of fond memories etched in my heart. This is a tribute in my little way to all those mentioned and many more not mentioned here.
**********************************************************************
It was a cold winter afternoon and I had just finished appearing for an exam and was feeling hungry since I had eaten nothing since morning. It was already 1 pm and there was a call for 'bandh' given by terrorists and there was no public transport availiable. I managed to get into a BRO (Border Roads Org, the guys who maintain the roads to supply troops in forwards posts, in terrain where mules find it difficult to walk) truck which was headed to Dimapur. I supressed my hunger as I was eager to get back before it was dark. They were the days when ceasefire was not in place and any army vehicle was a prized target for the militants especially in the dark. The driver was a sardarji who enquired in his rustic punjabi style, 'oye munda, khana vaana khayiya ki nayi? (Hey lad did you have anything to eat or not?) I told him not to worry and stop wherever he chose to if neccessary. He didnt say a word, but after a 45 min of journey, he drove into an BRO base camp and took the truck straight to a langar. I watched him get down and appear with a big plate full of food and he asked me to have it. I couldn't just thank him enough for the food and as I started eating it I noticed that he was only having a cup of tea which he could have had on any wayside tea stall. When asked he told me that he already had food. Sardars are not light eaters and the food he brought was sufficient for two guys like me. Somehow I managed to finsih it and was heaving a sigh of relief when he appeared again this time with a big tumbler of 'kheer'. To cut the long story short, he drove happily singing some punjabi songs and he dropped me near my house before vanishing around the corner of the road in darkness. I never remebered his name and prefer to remeber him only as a sardarji.
****************************************************************************
I went with my father to visit a place in Bhutan he frequented during his monthly trips to a remote 'site'. My father was off to meet a local official and since the transport is very fast it would take him the entire day. I was left in the office which was no more than a thatched hut with two rooms. One of which served as the bed room and kitchen for the two workers there while the other room was the office cum bedroom for the 'officials'. As I lazed around in the day, one of the workers told me about a bright stone that looked like gold that he found in a secret place somewhere there. He suspected it to be gold. But I was delighted to hear about it as I strongly suspected (with a current course in physical chemistry I was taking at my college!) it to be 'fools gold' an ore of Iron that glitters like gold. Thrilled, I asked him to take me to the place where he found it and he led me through the forests always on lookout for snakes and leeches that were hanging on the branches of the trees rather than being on the ground. We came across a hut of Bhutanese elderman and being tired of walking for almost three hours we went there to ask for some water. The old lady brought me water and offered freshly brewed rice beer and said it is good for health. When I politely refused she roasted a few corn cobs from her field and applied some salt and butter and gave it to me. I still remember how she bowed and folded hands when she was giving us corn cobs or beer. I watched my companion gulp beer and I was curiously absorbed in the simplistic surroundings I was in. Meanwhile she roasted a few more cobs wrapped them carefully in a banana leaf and sent us home. I bow in humility to the elderly couple on a remote hill in Bhutan who served their unkown guests with honor.
*******************************************************************************
Lush sugarcane fields were swaying graciously in the evening wind. Evening sun was casting his last shadows in his golden glory. I was walking along the shore of river Bheema in Maharastra and came across this farmers hut. The farmer was sitting outside with his wife cooking inside as was apparent from the intermittent smoke rising from the small chimney on their hut. He looked curiously at me as I was walking and was trying to avoid the annoying barks of the lone dog closeby. Feeding hens intermittently raised their heads to watch the stranger. I smiled and the farmer smiled back and with that we struck a conversation. I told him I was an agricultural engineer who studied how to improve the farming. I was curious as to the ways they use to make jaggery and the finer aspects of it. He was more than happy to tell me and lighting a beedi volunteered to show me around his facility where he makes jaggery. I was overjoyed to get an oppurtunity to get first hand knowledge of jaggery making process. To cap it all, when it was time for me to take leave as it was getting dark he asked me to wait for five minutes. He summoned his son and told him something in an accent that I could not understand and the kid sped off to the field. In a few minutes, he came with hands full of freshly harvested sugarcane. The farmer started the engine and put the sugarcane into the crusher while his son came out with few lemons and a glass tumbler. They poured the juice into the glass taking care to avoid any stray fibers and added lemon and offered it to me. As I drank in that glass, from the broken edges of the glass I realised it must have been on of those few 'best' glasses that are reserved for guests in every Indian household. Never in my life did I have a more sweeter sugarcane juice. I folded my hands in gratitude and left silently.
******************************************************************************
Only the tall trees among the tea garden could catch the last rays of the setting sun. Most of the birds were silent too except for the lone voice of an unknown bird from somewhere deep in the adjacent forest. The last village bus that brought me sped ahead to its last destination a few miles away on the Indo-Bhutan border bathing me with dust. Largely a village of tea garden workers, there were no lodges. A communication gap caused me to arrive a day earlier than what I told my father. His kingdom was deep in forests, hidden from everyone and thus he had to choose to speak to us. I waited on the road and watched in despair the lock on the only hotel in the village whose owner I met during my previous visit. I saw a man and two kids following him at a distance. As they approached me the man said, 'Babu who are you?' I told him that my father worked in such and such place and I was waiting for him to come next day. He asked me how I would be spending that night and I told him I didnt know. He offered to take me to his house which I accepted gladly. His house was a thatched hut, with two rooms. One big and another small. In the big room they had a 'chulha' in one corner and two old trunks in another. Kids books were stacked neatly against the trunks and their drawing of 'mountains and rivers' pasted on the wall above it. There was also a framed school certificate that was welcoming the visitors. In no time the lady of the house made a few rotis and fed me. I could hear the whispering voices of the children and muffeled voice mother in the next room as I was eating my dinner. Rotis for any poor family in a small town of Bengal are a luxury as I knew they were more expensive than the more common rice. I was given a bed with some blankets covering it. It was made of four bamboo poles and a bamboo mat tied with few wires. The family slept in the adjacent room on a blaket spread on floor. As I slept there, I wondered about the relation between me and the man with two kids and the lady who had just made rotis for me.
Next day my father's office truck arrived and as I left, I gave some money to the man which he promptly refused. I called the little girl and gave her the money and asked her to study well. She smiled and ran to her mother. The only way I think I can ever pay my gratitude is to pass it on, as they say in America.
******************************************************************
These are only a few of the examples I encountered in my motherland. Together we can accomplish a lot more than what we can do alone. Taekwondo taught me that it is true even in crossing seemingly impossible physical obstacles. At times when optimism flickers like the last star of the night looking at the treachery and cunning in the world we live, I remember these people and stand up again with the conviction, that until there is atleast one such person on earth there is hope and I see the golden orb of the rising sun heralding a new dawn.
@