Salad D@ys

His hand caught mine, just in time for me to avoid being reduced to pulp by the jarring doors of the metro. In the rush of that frantic moment, I could still hear the cheers of the crowd I had to wade through before I got to the exit. My pal Saket, fortunately found his way out or rather was pushed ahead by the wave of impatient travelers waiting to disembark. The few moments I had spent trying to grasp his hand, held out for me, seemed to last an eternity.

30 meters above this crowded metro station lied a world of clamor and cacophony with figures, the sheer number of them making it hard to observe independently, rapidly advancing and moving away. The three-wheeled rickshaws ruled these streets where the ever-growing market had consumed the footpaths leaving behind no space for the pedestrians.

I approached the nearest rickshaw-waala and said ‘Daryaganj’. Up went his four fingers in the most strikingly nonchalant fashion. Rupees 40 from Chawri Bazaar to Daryaganj seemed to me a pittance considering the physical drudgery; I could not refuse. His emaciated face and sparse white beard on it coupled with the dancing smoke from his thin beedi (folded tobacco) did nothing to set him apart from the rest of these rugged men called rickshaw-waalas, numbering in thousands.

A scuffle had erupted between two motorists on the road ahead, a common sight, I was told. It didn’t take long, however, for the two to be persuaded to carry their fight on elsewhere. The rickshaw was frighteningly agile, dodging and braking in quick succession as we moved forward. At times, my reflexes took over as my foot instinctively lunged onto the brakes which were never there; a moment too soon for me to realize I was just the passenger. Thankfully the rickshaw-waala was too busy to notice or was confident that his rickshaw was as resilient as himself.

It felt as if Delhi was talking to me “When you’re pushed, you push back. When you’re stared at, you stare back. That’s the way it is around here”. Some say that it is, for nature, one of the gravest sins to be unable to adapt.