I was almost midway through my evening walk. The pace was nice and I'd begun sweating from all pores of my body thanks - no, not because of my blistering pace(?) but due - to the clammy weather. I was left with another 500 metres to get on to the home stretch. The Sahodaran Ayyappan road was chock-a-block with traffic going out of the town after business hours!
A family, consisting of a well dressed young man(in his early 30s, as I reckoned) holding an infant baby, his wife(with her 'pallu' covering her head) and his mother(hovering around 50 and no, she'd no 'pallu' covering her head) passed me and then I heard him, hesitantly, call out to me. I don't think that he'd expected me to stop at his prodding and they'd already started moving away - prompted by earlier reactions, perhaps!
So, when I stopped and turned around, to answer his query on the route to his destination as I anticipated it to be, his request really threw me off balance - at least for a moment. He said that they'd detrained a little while before, after a journey from Kota in Rajasthan and had no money with them to buy anything to eat! As the young man had finished his piece, his mother repeated the pleas for help and ended it by saying that god would bless me if I did!
I do not carry my wallet or cellphone when I'm on my walks but today, I'd carried Rs.30/- to buy a few cough lozenges for my bad throat. In fact, I'd already bought five and had the remaining Rs.25/- in my pocket and told the son and his mother that the amount that I'd with me was too meagre to be of any help in their hour of discomfort. I, even, had spelt out the amount and had estimated at least Rs.100/- for them to have a decent meal from the roadside stalls!
But, for them, it seemed to be adequate and the young man accepted the amount with mumbles of 'god will look after you' and all that! And something deep within castigated me for not having more money in my person!
Tailpiece.
Wonder what happened to them subsequently? Had they come down to Kochi in search of work? How will they survive without any money on them? Are they the latest footpath dwellers of Kochi?
God, pse take care of them!
A family, consisting of a well dressed young man(in his early 30s, as I reckoned) holding an infant baby, his wife(with her 'pallu' covering her head) and his mother(hovering around 50 and no, she'd no 'pallu' covering her head) passed me and then I heard him, hesitantly, call out to me. I don't think that he'd expected me to stop at his prodding and they'd already started moving away - prompted by earlier reactions, perhaps!
So, when I stopped and turned around, to answer his query on the route to his destination as I anticipated it to be, his request really threw me off balance - at least for a moment. He said that they'd detrained a little while before, after a journey from Kota in Rajasthan and had no money with them to buy anything to eat! As the young man had finished his piece, his mother repeated the pleas for help and ended it by saying that god would bless me if I did!
I do not carry my wallet or cellphone when I'm on my walks but today, I'd carried Rs.30/- to buy a few cough lozenges for my bad throat. In fact, I'd already bought five and had the remaining Rs.25/- in my pocket and told the son and his mother that the amount that I'd with me was too meagre to be of any help in their hour of discomfort. I, even, had spelt out the amount and had estimated at least Rs.100/- for them to have a decent meal from the roadside stalls!
But, for them, it seemed to be adequate and the young man accepted the amount with mumbles of 'god will look after you' and all that! And something deep within castigated me for not having more money in my person!
Tailpiece.
Wonder what happened to them subsequently? Had they come down to Kochi in search of work? How will they survive without any money on them? Are they the latest footpath dwellers of Kochi?
God, pse take care of them!
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