THIS AND ALL MY FUTURE POSTS COME WITH THE STATUTORY WARNING/ASSURANCE THAT THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT YOU, THE READER, IT IS ABOUT ME. ANY REMINDER TO YOUR OWN SELVES IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL AND I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR INTERPRETATIONS: It was perhaps in the year 2002, I do not remember exactly. I live in Mayur Vihar Phase II in Delhi which is on the east bank of the river(I hope it is that) Yamuna and work at Pragati Maidan in the west bank. I cross the river daily when I go to work. I travel by what we call an autorickshaw, a three wheeled motorised contraption that is popular all over India as an adventurous means of transport whose drivers are a political constituency, especially to what people like Sanjeev Sarma calls AAPtards. My office is connected to my home by an 8 lane stretch of road that sometimes becomes 16 laned. By Indian and even International standards, these are some of the widest roads ever seen. So traffic jams in those days were few and far between. It was therefore, that I was surprised one day in 2002 when I got stuck in a traffic jam on the Nizamuddin Bridge, one of the several bridges that takes you from the east bank to the west. It transpired that a beggar woman had died giving birth to a girl child at the junction where the Nizamuddin bridge joins the Ring Road. Later we saw a toddler on the footpath tended to by others, as we stopped at the traffic lights on the Nizamuddin bridge. Most people who traveled that stretch for work came to recognise that baby girl as they buzzed through. Time passed and we got used to that infant growing into a child and begging there when the cars stopped. She was tentative in the beginning but gained confidence as she grew up. Four years later I got a baby girl for myself, Gullu. But I looked out for and spotted this girl who was born on the Nizamuddin pul daily. Today the girl is mature, beautiful and confident. She is the princess of the region between Sarai Kale Khan and Nizamuddin pul. I am sure she will become something one day, but I sincerely fantasise that I am able to make her something that the Nation is proud of some day. BTW pul means bridge.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 14:59:09 +0000
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