Of Angels and Things

Let’s talk of angels today.

No, not of the winged kinds, but of the ones in disguise or in fancy dress (if you will): of the ones with neither wings nor haloes...of the ones who are ordinary, mortal and very like our own mundane selves.

Why suddenly angels, you might ask. It’s not that I’ve not written of them before (you may like to refer to ‘Khronicles of Kaloo II’ and ‘Hitchhiking in Hooghly’) but today’s story has a slightly different flavour to it, being I feel, coated with a thin veneer of the Mysterious.

So this story is from about ten years back. I was then working in a small town in Assam and was to catch a late night train home from its capital Guwahati. Other Half was located halfway round the globe then and I was at that point of time, alone. To reach Guwahati from my town, it usually took the better part of three hours and so that afternoon I caught a local bus that promised to drop me off at the Guwahati railway station in less than three hours. But there was for some reason, a roadblock en route and we were delayed by nearly three hours. So when the bus finally entered the city, night had already set in. I was not very familiar with Guwahati and to compound the problem, the bus, making a detour had extruded us at a bus stand which was totally unfamiliar to me. It was now nearly ten pm and when I alighted I realised with a jolt that I had no idea which part of Guwahati I was in, where the railway station was and more importantly that my current location was completely devoid of law abiding citizens. The only denizens visible seemed to be petty riff-raff, some giving me such leering once-overs that my heart began thudding in foreboding. When I asked some one where the station was, he pointed a drunken finger vaguely in a general direction at a point beyond my head, a hint that was totally useless. And adding to my growing discomfiture was the grim reality that not a single public conveyance was to be seen, neither cycle rickshaws nor autorickshaws nor for that matter, minibuses. I had two pieces of heavy luggage with me and was in no position to start trekking. So I waited, hoping against hope for a rickshaw to appear. Slowly my neighbourhood emptied as the passengers of the bus departed, mostly on foot or on the two wheelers of friends and relatives; and the night silence deepened. Even the riff-raff seemed to have withdrawn into the darkness, as if waiting and watching in the shadows, ambush-like. I was now effectively stranded with two pieces of heavy luggage and the looming possibility of missing my train home. On the brink of a panicked breakdown, I suddenly heard a lilting voice,

“Heyyyyy...........”

I looked behind and then above. A spectacled woman was sitting atop a cycle rickshaw beckoning me.

“Going to the railway station?”  She asked, pointing at my suitcases.

I nodded.

“You can come with me.” She said, squeezing her plump self to one side of the seat.

For a few seconds I was transfixed with surprise at the suddenness of her appearance and of her offer. It seemed almost miraculous. Then the instinct for survival kicked in. Without any further hesitation or unnecessary questions, I hauled my suitcases up to the flat rest at her feet and was just clambering up, when I noticed that there was another creature occupying the space to the woman’s other side. I stopped in mid clamber for there didn’t seem to be much space left for me with two occupants already sitting on the narrow seat. 

Realising the problem, the woman gestured to the creature next to her,

“You sit on the rickshawallah’s seat.”

The creature complied without a murmur of dissent.

The woman shifted laterally, patting the now expanded space next to her. “Come, come.”

I completed my clamber and sat down. The rickshawallah, till now watching our antics silently gave a worried glance at his usurped seat. The woman realising the problem, cajoled in her liting voice,

“Bhaiyya, station to pichhe hi hai, zyaada door nahin...chaliye naa.......”

The rickshawallah it appeared to me, simply melted at her cajoling.

And so we  chaloed, us women on the seat with around four and half pieces of luggage, the creature sitting opposite us on the rickshaw wallah’s seat and the rickshawallah himself pedalling vigorously, his entire body bobbing up and down as he cycled.

It was only now, safely ensconced in my chariot and destination bound, that I turned my attention to the two people with me. Since she was sitting opposite I got a good glimpse of the ‘creature’ person whose gender I had been till now unable to decipher. Now when I finally got a good look at her, I realised that she was just a young woman, probably only a teen, with short cropped hair, androgynous attire and totally cherubic.

The plump woman beside me explained,

“My sister. She’s studying in college here at Guwahati.”

 I smiled at them both.

“Thank you.” I told her.

She gestured dismissively. “Oh ho, it’s nothing.”

Fair with tiny, slanting eyes and straight hair tied in a stylishly careless knot behind her head, she was of course, from somewhere in the North East. Comfortably plump with thick black framed spectacles, she appeared to be of my own age and judging from her used-to-being-in-charge demeanour, the sole guardian of her little sister.

The railway station as she had correctly pointed out to our rickshaw-wallah, was just round the corner and in no time we were there. Spotting the familiar footbridge and the usual hustle-bustle of an Indian railway station, I felt waves and waves of relief flood my innards.

“Thank you so much.” I said again.

She helped me down with my suitcases.

Seeing her keep sitting at her perch, I asked,

“And you?”

“Oh, we’ll be going to my sister's PG!”

“You’re not going to catch a train ?”

“No, no!” She laughed.

I was overwhelmed. She had taken a detour simply to drop me off safely at the station!

I put out my hand to shake hers. “Thank you.”

Her sister had now re-occupied the seat vacated by me and the rickshaw wallah fearing for his kursi, immediately reclaimed it and began to furiously pedal away. Watching them fade into the night, I suddenly remembered:-

“ Heyy,” I shouted. “Didn’t get your name.”

“Kim...........!” her lilting reply was lost in the din of the night time traffic.

Kim!!!! 

Gratitude welled up my throat. I knew I would not forget her. Suddenly, I wished to know her better, this kind, angel-like Kim.

But you see, the entire North East is full of Kims, thousands of them, of both genders. Even as I wished to know her, I knew that there was no earthly way that I could have ever searched her out, this Kim. Even today, with such fast and furiously efficient Social Media, I still know that without her surname, her address or any other identifying information, this Kim is lost to me.

But then you know, I don’t really need to search her out. I had already said my thanks to her. I know she would not want anything more from me. 

What is more important is that this little story of mine be told, for others to know, for two main reasons. Firstly, because in today’s atmosphere of increasing xenophobia, my story of Kim is a living, breathing proof of the innate niceness of our countrymen from the North East. 

And secondly because it reinforces my Alice like belief in guardian angels, creatures who emerge like magic out of thin air to stand firmly by your side when you are cornered against a tight spot. Oh yes I know, the politically correct thing to say for such situations is that one should be strong enough to solve one’s own problems without waiting for the Divine to intervene (you know- ‘God helps those who help themselves’ and all that), but personally for me, if a friendly, angelic Kim does pop in now and then out of the blue to steer me out of soups, then I am all for it, political correctness be damned.

PS: And as for the 'Mysterious' bit, I sometimes still wonder- 
Where did she emerge from, this Kim and her sister, suddenly in that deserted night, complete with such an accommodating rickshaw-wallah......??? It was sort of surreal, you know, that she had actually seemed to conjure herself out of nothingness................ a bit like Cinderella’s fairy Godmother, all mysterious, magical and মায়াবী........