lifeinthebylanes

I have been a traveller all my life. However, I never travelled for the sake of exploring. Being a professional tennis player, I was required to voyage the length and breadth of India to play competitive tournaments and gain ranking points.
As a child, I vividly remember taking a three-day long train journey to Ernakulum, Kerala, in South India, from my native town Jaipur in the North. The train was called Marusagar Express in Hindi. This name was derived joining two words: Maru, which is a desert; Sagar, an ocean.
Out of the numerous journeys I have undertaken, there is one such memorable experience that almost immediately springs to mind and leaves an impact.
I was in New Delhi during the festival season of Holi. It is known as the festival of colours and celebrated at the end of the winter season.
A day before the festival, I was in the by lanes of a market called Sadar Bazaar, Old Delhi’s famed wholesale market. The conditions in the market were tough — aroma of spices kept open in sacks was overwhelming and dearth of space means fighting for any free area to showcase products for the customers who throng the market.
Standing in the corner of one such busy street, was a man wearing a 2 feet long hat — made out of cardboard — selling colors and sweets I discovered that he had been practicing this trade for over two decades now.
He was obese and an alcoholic, who couldn’t stand on his feet for more than a few minutes. However, the festival changed something in him. He was selling merchandise with his children and doing it out of sheer joy rather than compulsion. Holi gave him an opportunity to come out of his inhibitions and he did it by drawing attention to himself with a hat. He was popularly known in the market as moti topi mithai wala (the man with a fat hat and sweets).
At that moment I realised that we all have our handicaps and shortcomings, but we can emerge out of those shadows and spread joy. Isn’t that what living is all about?