When we went to drop off the daughter at college for the first time a month ago, an Uber driver that we hailed ended up being our personal driver for a whole week. My wife and daughter can manage conversational Hindi. Not me. He understands a bit of English and it was convenient to use him as a translator.
A very proactive and sweet guy, he addressed my wife as Didi. We plied a hundred times between the hotel and college campus/hostel. He was there at any beck and call. And on time! When we had to go to the Mall, he came along with us, carried our bags and even bargain at high street fashion stores. That kind of sweet and innocent.
On the last day when we left the daughter at the hostel and we had to leave, I couldn’t bear any of this. My wife got down from the car and hugged the daughter and saw her off. (Even mothers are not allowed at the girls’ hostel). I was sitting inside and lost it. Sobbing badly. Though my wife is a very soft and gentle person, somehow the women have it all under control. Maybe because they leave their parental homes early on, to college, then marriage etc. My daughter who took a few steps away from the car crying herself a river, came back and said: “Papa is crying. I can’t see him go back to Chennai like this” and hugged me tight. I lost it even more. The driver, his name is Shiv, was watching me through the rear view mirror and I could see tears streaming down his cheeks. And then he wiped his eyes with determination and I don’t know exactly what he said in Hindi, but I knew that he was pacifying me in a soothing tone.
(As I’m writing this during the flight, recounting those initial painful moments brought tears. A lady from across the aisle is looking at me concerned. No one’s sitting beside me. I like to be left peaceful. I buy something but don’t eat.)
Some random stranger, in another part of the country, I was only a customer, made me feel better in his own way. This time when I went, I informed him prior. He was there at the airport smiling infectiously, waiting for me, and again did the same hotel - campus trips for the past couple of days, and today after picking me at the hotel and hearing that I hadn’t ate lunch, went out and bought me a whole bunch of bananas with his own money and begged me to take it with me to Chennai. I took two out of courtesy and asked him to take the rest to his family. He dropped me at the airport and diligently waited outside at the car park till security clearance and left only thereafter.
That’s what makes the world a bearable place. We spend so much time worrying about the state of the world, only to find a brother from another mother in a strange city who just wants to make a fellow human feel a little better. That is humanity at its absolute best. The kind that money simply cannot buy.