“Destitution is inability to afford basic human needs.” I had read this sometime under the Environmental Studies subject when I was a student of the middle school. Until then, the limped leg Sukhi, the son of our watchman Vishnu, was my best friend. I had never asked either Sukhi or Vishnu about Sukhi’s age because as far as I remember, he never went to a school. I always found him cleaning cars in the morning, and playing with the stray cycle tires in the afternoon under the scorching heat in my bungalow’s verandah. Playing carelessly on the burning marble floor, everyday he used to call out to me from the gate while I get down from the school bus, “Aaibo!” Oh how I always had a smile on my face looking at his ever energized face.
Although, my book’s definition had changed my perception on relationships at a very tender age, today my life changed forever.
Vishnu chacha was a potter by profession in my Baba’s village near Bhagalpur, Bihar. It was his ancestral profession, but Baba knew that he could not survive in the village with his dwindling income, so he had got him along when he shifted to Patna. That was years before I was even born.
To me, Sukhi was always my half brother, only born of a separate womb, but a part of me. My mornings used to begin with his smiling face, with him standing next to my bedside with a glass of milk. My clothes used to be always ironed before I even get up, nicely kept near dressing table and my bag ready with the books as per the time table. I wonder how he could manage that without knowing to read or write. He used to be on my mind all through the day as I used to eagerly wait to play the Dodge-ball with him, our favourite game of the afternoons. Not that I have no idea now why I used to win most of time in the game, because he used to lose deliberately to make me feel elated and full of pride, but what intrigues me is that how he could so innocently consent to give all his “Cheeni Parathas” to me in the dinner that Vishnu chacha made every day for him. Being the only child, I never particularly liked sharing my clothes and toys. What belonged to me once remained mine till shredded off. In spite of everything, I remember to secretly love playing with Sukhi’s cycle tire. So much that I started bringing it back to my own bedroom, while he just watched me play. He was an only child too, but he had somehow managed to keep the sharing instinct alive, almost to the verge of surrendering.
Going back in time, I remember that my ruthless conduct had set off when I grew up to the middle school and made richer friends. We all had video games, cricket accessories, basketballs and a five star sports club membership to keep us busy all the time. It stopped occurring to me very naturally to take Sukhi along with my new friends. “Why should anyone know that I have a poor friend who has only 2 pairs of decent clothing and a cycle tire in the name of self claimed amenities?” I had thought to myself. Somewhere around that time was that day when Vishnu chacha suddenly passed away.
Though, Baba was off and on a religious man, he was not as benevolent to let an orphan stay with us in our bungalow without expecting a payback. So he sent Sukhi off to stay with our house cleaner, and Sukhi continued to contribute to the daily chores of our household. There was a strange transformation in him as he adjusted to the feeling of being an orphan. He just stopped talking. The usual chirpiness, the energy and the smiling face was gone forever. That was a few months before he left the town without telling anyone, and obviously no one bothered. Though I remember asking Baba about why he left, “Beta, you don’t worry and concentrate on your studies”, he had said, and I had turned my face towards my books again.
There was no remorse in my heart then, at least not as much as I feel today when I saw a teenager with a familiar limped leg on a busy street in Delhi. As he limped towards my car window and knocked to coax me to buy one of the scented candle packs that he had in his brown sack, hanging on his shoulders, my heart skipped a beat. “Sukhi”! I exclaimed in my mind. It was him. But his smile was back, “Saab!” he recognised me. I lowered the window and still pretended as if I did not recognise him. Before I even took out money to buy the candle pack, he threw one inside the window on my lap and shouted in joy, “Rakh lo saab, khushbuwala hai”! (Keep it sir, it is scented). And he left.
In a minute he was out of sight, but left me grieving deep inside. I tried hard deliberating how a destitute could keep giving me his very subsistence, how he could share when I was the fulfilled one, how he could smile when I had plentiful of material joys under my feet, how he could stand upright with his head held high when I was the one who had healthy feet and well being unchallenged.
And I realised the connection finally. It is not the riches. Indeed, I was a destitute all the while, and he was the prosperous one. My definitions changed, and so did my life.
