Mr. Ragpicker

His day had begun quite a while back, so that when his body started to feel the need for a little bit of rest, the early morning October mist still hung in the air. The aroma of the typical spiced tea – rich and creamy and strong, with the hint of ginger and cardamom infused in it – buzzed around the roadside tea stall. Judging by his composure, I figured that this was all part of his regular routine. Picking up crumpled bottled cola bottles thrown carelessly from the flashy cars, early in the morning, and when the time came, a nice steaming miniature cup of tea from the tea-stall. Life, even at its harshest of times, seemed to have acquired a sense of rhythm to it; especially for him.

It was at the tea stall that I met him, and when I looked into his face, found that there was something amiss. The eyes didn’t seem to fit those of a rag-picker. The eyes were intelligent, and looked like they were still looking for a way to fulfil some half-forgotten dream from a long time ago. Or, maybe I was looking too much into them – maybe he was just yearning for his morning cup of tea. Still, there was only one way to find out; by talking to him. I didn’t know how to start a conversation with him, but there was no other choice. So I started talking to him in the lamest way possible.

“Nice weather, isn’t it?” I said to him when he sat down with the tiny cup next to me.

Now, the weather might have been cool, and it might have been nice, but it was nowhere near worthy of a comment – especially between two strangers. The look on his face clearly suggested that he was torn between being amused and confused, and so he made a compromise and gave me a confused smile before putting the cup of tea back to his lips. I was embarrassed myself, so gave him a sheepish smile too before sipping on my tea.

“Yes, it is nice,” he said a moment later. “It always is around this time of the year. October mornings are wonderful in Delhi.”

“You’re from Delhi?” I asked.

“No, but I’ve lived here for a long time. I’m originally from UP, near Meerut. Not far from here, but it’s not Delhi is it?” he asked. I grinned, and he continued, “I grew up there, in Meerut. I came here in my youth, after I’d finished with my studies. I was an engineering student, not too bad with grades and all. Once that was done, I came to Delhi looking for a job.”

“Where did you work in Delhi?”

“I worked at a number of places – engineering companies, mostly. But none of those stints lasted long. I wasn’t really happy about life, not even content. Life was just – moving on.” He drained the last of his tea from the cup, and I expected that he would walk away right after that. But he stayed put, while I wondered a lot about him. At first glance, I might have dismissed this old, fragile man. Now, however, I found it hard to not be interested in him – and although a part of me hated it, I was downright curious to know more about him.

I didn’t want to sound rude, though, so I didn’t ask him anything outright. I just waited for him to feel comfortable and open up (I think I might be too much of an optimist sometimes), while he sat there with his black bag with the discarded trash of the day slung on his shoulders. Some of my curiosity must have been reflected on my face, however, because he asked in a little while, “Why should I tell you more?”

“Because you can trust me,” I said on impulse.

He looked slightly taken aback by my answer, but then asked me, a little more sternly this time, “Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m a stranger,” I said.

He looked strangely at me, and suddenly the discomfort melted away from his face. He laughed – he had quite a heavy, booming laugh for a man of his stature – and for some reason (and even though I didn’t expect it at all), he bought what I said.

I bought another round of tea for the both of us, and sat down for his story.

“So, like I was telling you, I was working at various engineering companies in and around the city. I never really stuck to one job for long – it got monotonous for me. In fact, this was one of the main reasons why I joined up for the railways; so that I could travel. But what I really wanted to do, of course, was get into the air force or the navy. I know I didn’t qualify on medical grounds, but it’s a dream that I nurtured for a long time. Life does that to you sometimes. That’s why I always tell everyone I talk to (which isn’t much, mind you) to do whatever it is that they want to while they still can.

“But, I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes; the engineering companies. The work was tedious, repetitious and boring, and I quickly got bored from it. I moved from company to company in quick succession. Every move came with a hike, and a promotion, so before I knew it I was quite well off. I moved to a bigger house since I was able to afford one. I bought a car, and when I had acquired all these things, I found that I still wasn’t satisfied with life. My parents were trying hard to get me to settle down (a colloquial way of saying that it was time for me to get married), and that’s when I left the endless line of engineering companies and joined the railways. I got married, we were settled in Delhi, but the constant travelling kept me away from home when I really wanted to. I was content with life, but the monotony kept on; I still wasn’t happy. In addition, my wife constantly complained about our comparatively lower income than my friends and neighbours, most of who were still working at the places I had left – the big private firms. She pressurised me, finally, to give up the railway job and get back to my old job that paid much more. I tried to get away from that, but I couldn’t. I was back where I had started; to the same old hollow lifestyle, comparing sizes of houses and lengths of cars as if it all meant something. But now, at least my wife had stopped complaining so much, and even the new line of jobs kept me busy most of the time. I hardly stayed at home.”

“What about kids?” I asked.

“There was never time, to be honest. Like I said, I was hardly ever home, and I didn’t want to raise kids in that environment when I couldn’t be around to watch them grow up. Now, when I think about it, I feel it was selfish of me. Back then, though, not having children felt like the right thing to do.

“I started reading a lot more than I did previously, but there was something that was always nagging in the back of my head. In all aspects of life, I was content but never happy. I had a good family life – a good wife, great relations with all of my extended family. I had a decent job, one that paid all the bills for us. I tried a lot of ways to get back the happiness that I used to feel during my college days – books, music, films. I read more than ever during that time of my life, and watched more films than ever. I revived my interest in music once more; I used to play guitar in the college band, and although we knew we weren’t any good, we were passionate about music. I started frequenting small rock shows, and would be the only guy in formal attire – complete with tie – amidst the crowd of youngsters in their black t-shirts, head-banging with them while they looked a little alarmed with my exuberance. I stopped going soon after though – there are just so many strange stares that you can take. But books stayed on with me, and so did the music, confined in my own little room, my private little world.

“And in spite of it all, I still wasn’t happy the way others seemed to be. Life seemed so much simpler for them; my neighbours would get their happiness from buying a pair of ugly, branded shoes, while I felt nothing from the same experience. Even my wife seemed happy after buying things like that, something that I never understood. I envied her for it too – for having that simplistic bent of mind, to be happy with nothing more than a piece of leather shaped into a shoe.

“I started drinking the way my wife had started shopping. The louder she got, the more I had to drink to dull her voice in my head. Her friends, our neighbours, they became even louder, and for a while it seemed as though it was a contest of who was the loudest of them all. The glitterier my world became, the more I had to drown myself in alcohol to survive it. There had to come a time, however, when no amount of alcohol would have been sufficient, and when that time came, my wife filed for divorce. She hired a lawyer (with my own money) and proved that I was an alcoholic in court. The lawyer sucked out a major chunk of the money we had, and whatever was left, my wife took that. The house, the fancy cars (note that that’s plural; and I hadn’t even wanted one car to begin with!), and the money that was left after the lengthy divorce trial – it all went to her. I was left a tiny sliver to sustain myself, and the court justified it by saying that I had a job. What the court didn’t realise was that after I was proven to be an alcoholic, the company wasn’t too keen to see me around either. I was put on a sabbatical (without pay, of course), and eventually I was fired. By this time, I had moved twice to progressively smaller homes, and had rid myself of all the things that had tainted me since I had ‘settled down’. I was finally a free man.

“I travelled a lot, mostly on foot, since I couldn’t afford luxurious means of travel anymore. What I found, however, was that I was happier doing that than travelling in air-tight cars where you can’t even smell the air of a new village you pass through. I stopped often, and met a whole lot of people. I did small odd jobs – repairing phones, radios, TVs etc. at that time, to sustain myself, and every time I had enough money to get around again, I’d move on. I started writing as well, and carried at least one book with me at all times. It’s a good thing that you can still barter books, or buy them second hand for cheap, if you know how to find the right places. I was finally happy with my life.

“I don’t linger on anywhere for long – especially in the big cities. I’m not stopping here, I’m just passing through here. Truth is, nobody wants me to fix their radios or their phones in big cities like this; they would rather take them to the bigger shops and pay good money to get minor fixes to those things. Not that I mind though – it just gives me an excuse to get out of the bigger cities sooner.”

“So, you’re not a full time rag-picker?” I asked him before I could stop myself.

“No, no,” he said, laughing. “I’m not a full time rag picker. I don’t stay here often; I’m just passing through the city. The only reason I stopped was because October is my favourite time in Delhi, but that’s not reason enough to keep me here.”

“You said you write a lot now. What do you write about?”

“People I meet, mostly; their stories.”

“I do that too, from time to time. Do you mind if, someday, I write something about you?”

“Why should I mind? I don’t even know where I would be when you’ve written that. Chances are that I won’t even get to read it! Go ahead, write whatever you want about me,” he said, the smile still not leaving his face.

“How do you manage to write so much if you don’t stay put at one place for long?” I asked. I was wondering where he kept his written work, but he misunderstood the question.

“Pens and notebooks aren’t hard to come by these days. They’re not so expensive either – so I can afford to buy them when I have to.”

I tried to clarify the question. “And where do you keep the notebooks once they’re full? If you write a lot, you must have a whole lot of notebooks filled by now.”

“I generally barter them for books to read. I give them away to the small, second hand book-sellers, and they generally lower the book prices for that. The only thing I ask them, however, is that once they’re done with the stories, they pass them on as well – barter them again in exchange of books. That way, maybe, my stories keep going round and round. Who knows, if you haunt dusty book stores often, you might find one of my notebooks there as well!”

“Why don’t you get your stories published? You would find a much bigger audience that way, and more people would be able to read your stories.”

“I don’t think I would be able to handle the fame or success, if any of that comes my way. Also, I would have to use a pen-name for that purpose, and I’m bad at coming up with names of characters.” He finished the last gulp of his tea, crumpled up the plastic cup and threw it in the trash bin.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “I have trouble coming up with names for my characters as well.”

His story finished, he got up to leave and get back to his day of rag-picking. Break time was over, and like all of us, his face suggested that he wished it had lingered on for a little while longer as well. Just as he was leaving, I realised something and called him back.

“Wait, you didn’t tell me your name.”

He smiled his smile, the one that I had become so used to in that little span of time, and said, “If I told you that, we wouldn’t be strangers anymore.”

~