I've been staring at this page way too long, trying to figure out the right way to narrate this.
It all seems blurry, the person I've become, the place I'm at, the way I feel. Wait, what do I feel? Is it pain? Or is it just ignorance? Fuck, what if it's nothing?
I don't know the certainty of me feeling hurt or happy again. As a matter of fact, I'm not positive I'd ever feel anything. I guess the numbness is spreading to each of my cells, blocking off even the voice in my head. I was with my friends, busy tying my long hair into a tight bun so it wouldn't fall in my face, disrupting my comfort zone. Even before I knew it, they helped me get an auto and I, for God knows what reasons, was not ready to leave just yet. How I prayed the auto driver wouldn't agree to take me where I wanted to go. I felt my heart sink when I hugged my friends goodnight and got onto the rickshaw. The only thing that I could remember when I sat was how the two boys kept asking me to be safe when I was travelling almost fort-five minutes back home. Why did all of that seem so weird at that moment? Isn't that something everyone says to people they care for?
Anyhow, once I was settled and waved bye to my friends, the driver murmured something under his breath and I asked him if he said anything, just out of curiosity. I didn't intend to make a conversation, really.
"Did you say something, uncle?"
He turned around to look me in the eye, "Um, nothing. I was just thanking Allah for you."
I was taken aback. No one's ever said that to me, I just smiled. He continued, "I haven't had a single customer in the past two days, beti. You're my first."
My eyebrows shot up, its Bangalore, it's nearly impossible for an auto driver to go without a customer in two whole days.
"I'm sorry if I'm boring you with my story but I really need someone to hear me out." I took off my earphones and smiled, waiting for him to continue. He looked at me through the mirror, his eyes were heavy with the surma he'd applied. Well, that wasn't probably the only thing that made his eyes so heavy. Or at least that's what I thought of whatever I could make out through his thick lenses.
"I have a son who's seven years old who was playing with his friends and he accidently happened to slip off a wall with some sharp glassed fence and he hurt his left eye. His friend's father called me up immediately and told me whatever had happened, so we rushed him to the emergency room and they said that if an operation wasn't done soon, he could lose his eye sight." At this point, he took off his thick lenses, and to what it seemed to me in the light of a lamppost, he was wiping off a tear.
"I have a daughter whose wedding is in less than a month from now and I honestly feel so lost, I have no money for the operation or the wedding. So beti, all I need you to do is to pray for me. I need your dua."
I sat there, stunned, digesting every little piece of information my brain had just received. I am just another 18 year old girl, I'm no angel. Why was he telling me these things! That's what my mind said but my heart broke into a billion pieces when I saw that old man wiping his tears off. I'm no parent, I am nowhere close to understanding what he must be going through.
The past few days, I'd been bothered by a number of things I didn't know. I've probably been extremely sad for no apparent reason. Nothing went wrong, I get what I want, I go where I want, I see my friends when I want to and yet, what could I feel? I just stared into the air, trying to think of an appropriate answer, how could I be his strength when I wasn't strong for myself? How could I tell him that everything was going to be okay if I wasn't sure whether or not I'd be okay myself? Seems kinda selfish, don't it? I finally said, "I'm going to pray for you, uncle. My dua is with you. And this, I promise you." I don't know with what confidence I said it or how long it had been since I had thought something positive. Invariably, I looked at the driver's licence and I realised in an instant that he was a Muslim. Me being from a strict Hindu background was probably expected to be bitchy towards his situation. I thought about it all. The gravity of the situation, the fact that even though it was established that I was a Hindu, an old Muslim man asked me to just pray for his family. Beside this, I had my own stupid problem of not knowing what the problem was! Am I mental?
I sat there in complete silence, my music was on, but I couldn't hear a single thing. I hated how I couldn't hear myself, the little voice in my own head was blocked. I needed to hear my thoughts, feel my heart beat again.
I finally got home and when I got off, the meter rate was a 110 rupees and I looked at all the money that I held and I handed it over to him.
He looked at me and held my hand, "You've given me more money than the meter fare, beti."
I nodded and smiled, "I know, keep it, uncle. This is all I can do, I know this isn't much but I truly pray that your family gets better." He looked at me with wet eyes and I felt a tear fall onto my hand.
"Allah tujhe sukoon de." He said he wiped his tears off and drove away. I stood there, feeling my legs heavier than before, dragging my body back home. I looked up and finally felt a tear roll down my cheek, my heart finally pumping painful blood and my "little voice" say, "There's always hope, isn't there?"
I'd missed it all, for so long. I'd craved to hear myself again.
It's not about how long I'd been lost for or how I may never know the reason for my sadness, there is always going to someone, anyone, maybe someone I know or something I may never associate with, who's trying to help me out, and this whole incident made me wonder how someone I just met and probably the only time I'd be seeing ever again could leave such an impact on me that the closest people to me didn't even understand what I really felt. There is always going to be some light, maybe just the power of change that you never know is going to happen. Change happens overnight. One day, you're sad, just hoping to find your way out and without you ever realising, that road is right what you're on. And no religion, no age and nothing you think or do will ever stop the change from happening.
And this, I promise you.
