Stranger than Fiction
All characters appearing in this story are real. And by real I mean fake. Any resemblance to persons living or dead or about to die or about to be born is purely deliberate.
A kid with a few hours to live was smiling outside my car. At a traffic light on the Ring Road, a guy with this kid around his arms is knocking on the side window, with more tears than eyes in his eyes.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Oman.
Oman who?
Oman I need some help.
He tells me that the kid needs a couple of medicines urgently. He even shows me a doctor’s prescription, with a sorrow so deep in his eyes. Sure I believe him. Sure I realise the medical emergency. I think I’ve heard this story before. Well, at least the plot was the same. A pregnant woman with her mother-in-law wanted money to take her to the hospital. They didn’t want my generous yet sarcastic offer to drop them to the hospital, which was a few minutes away. Just a travel allowance the old lady said. I saw the awesome twosome a week later at another other traffic light. Still pregnant. Still in her labour. And long overdue with it.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
A little kid.
A little kid who?
A little kid who can’t reach the bell.
I tell this guy that his kid looks really sick. Patients with frontotemporal dementia have this tendency of failing to detect sarcasm. Only if he knew that I knew that he knew that I already know his story. So this time around I give him a generous yet sarcastic offer to get some clozapine prescription for his son, who for some reason is dying of schizophrenia. He refuses. The red signal goes green and he moves on the other side to tell his compelling story to someone else.
Probably an old lady who is keen on going to heaven and desperately needs some good deeds to nullify the bad ones. She’ll surely help him.
Last winter, while waiting for my office bus on the Ring Road, a guy comes up to me. He looks shabby but speaks well. His lips are dry and his hands are trembling; a classic symptom of addiction from…..god knows which drug. These addicts are always spoilt with choices, aren’t they? Standing there, he tells me that he has been walking all the way from Ashram. I believe that (no, I really do). He tells me he has lost his wallet and needs money to reach his office.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
DJ.
DJ who?
DJ vu.
I remind him it’s not the first time he has tried to sell his soft story for my hard cash. I try to jog his memory down to a fortnight back when he was standing at the same spot and telling me the same sobby story.
He racewalks before I even can say ‘Get set go’. All the way to his office is my guess.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Iam.
Iam who?
Sorry, I don’t know who you are.
The wide roads of Delhi are full of these small stories and the storytellers. Each story more compelling than the other. Each storyteller more convincing than the other.
The fakers, the drama queens, the ‘I would like to thank the academy’ father of a dying son. They all get up every morning like you and me and go to their front desk jobs on their respective roads. They are not beggars, they are not thugs. They are just salesmen. They sell stories for you to take back home. They make a hero out of you. They are just trying to make your mundane, monotonous life a little more exciting. A real father with a real son with an almost real story. A real woman with a real bun in the oven. And now you are a part of her story. A character. A vital link towards a ‘happily ever after’ ending. Then there is the middle age woman on Safdargunj road, she starts shouting the moment she gets off Bus No.543. She claims her polythene has been cut open with a knife. She is now out of cash, on the road and she needs a little help of a good gullible Samaritan like you, so that she can go home. So that you can feel a little better about yourself when you go home.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Aunt.
Aunt who?
Aunt you gonna help a helpless old woman.
Now I have a new office. A new road with new actors and new stories. I am on the toll booth, on a Monday morning. I usually take out my wallet three cars before my turn. Inside it are amber green 1000s, olive and yellow 500s, blue 100s, the red and orange 20s – all black. I pull out a 20 but for some reason I push it back in.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Old man.
Old man who?
Old man in the mirror is closer than he appears.
As my turn comes, I get out of the car. I walk back towards the mint green Santro behind me. I knock on the side window of the driver’s seat. The old man inside lowers his power window.
“Hello Sir”
“I am on my way to work and… it seems I forgot my wallet at home,” I tell him.
“Would you be kind enough to lend me a 20?”
“Sure son,” he says with a smile. He gives me a 20 and I give him a self congratulatory story to tell his grandson.
I take his twenty and hand it over to the guy at the toll booth, before I get back in my car. The rear view mirror confirms the smile on the old man’s face.
As I start my car, I throw the turquoise blue prozac capsules out of the car window. It’s been almost a month and I have been skipping on my prescription. The thrill and excitement is back in life. And giving me a high again.
Only if the others knew that I was one of them.
