The Idly Vendor

THE IDLY VENDOR OF VIDYA NAGAR
-------The queer ways of God---by G.S.Rajan
Eight thirty in the morning was the time to go for the college which starts at 09-15 A.M. The bus would take only fifteen minutes to reach the college in the morning time as the traffic is at the lowest ebb on such a time.

“Hyderabad is funny”, thought Prakash, “there would be few morning buses, but there will be service till 0100 A.M. in the mid-night”.

It had more to do with the life style of the city’s living populace. Laid back and careless, this city’s denizens had a strange way of looking at life. For them, life was nothing but a huge eat and drink party. Being a fusion of Muslim extravaganza with a dose of religious fervour, hyderabadis would celebrate almost every festival with all the pomp and gaiety so far that even the national days of the Independence day, the republic day would look like a religious festival day with all the loud speakers and the lot. The Shiva ratri of the Hindus is a day to play day-night cricket matches. Holi is the day to ascertain who can be the best hooligan. December 31st and the week of the year ending and also the first week of the year would be binge drinking days. Only that except the usual working days, Hyderabadis would be at their best in all the other days.
Thus all days are holidays for the citizens here and only 1/10th of the people would be active before 09:00 AM in the morning. Fewer at the crack of dawn, which would mean till the sun rises.

Leaving alone in his one room tenement, far away from his native home town, the city was all new to this rustic young man, but he was comfortable with the times. So comfortable he was, that he would while away most of the night along with his fellow waking citizens, the only hitch is that he would be alone and awake.

People always quizzed him how he would be able to stay alone. But for an introverted extrovert, that was not tough. Some people thought that his angry disposition stemmed from his loneliness. Some would think he was highly idealistic. Some mentioned that as his natural disposition. Left to himself, he would not be least angry or so in his own thoughts, that is. Being a deep thinker, who had his own thoughts of right and wrong, and a perennial quest for finding out the root of an issue, it would not matter to him that he would get nothing for finding at the real cause of the problem. A compulsive thinker, he was by habit.

One thing always irritated him when somebody told him, “you are an angry man, why don’t you control your anger?”. He would almost simultaneously start thinking, “What did I do or say to this fellow, for what he is calling me an angry person?” Sometimes, he would retaliate by denying and questioning the rationale behind such a remark, but on others, he would usually keep quiet.

Finally one day he started seriously thinking and decided that when so many people seemed to say so many things about him, it might be the case that he really was like that. So, he stopped retaliating and instead stayed calm at all the events, even when something hurt him personally. He found that much to his chagrin, people hitherto who were amicable according to him, started getting over him and try what he may, they just piled on comments and ordered him what to do and what not.

“There must be a way out of this”, was his reaction.

The road to the bus stop passed over a railway track for which he had to come round four houses to the right, turn right and then left for 50 metres and turn to cross the line and come to the main road after walking for another 50 metres. Not a bad distance, not too long to walk, just enough space away from the heavily polluted thorough fare.

He had his own agenda trying to keep up the college time. One thing was that he loved the morning air brushing through his ears while he walked towards the bus stop. And he loved to think of almost anything. Walking past the railway tracks always threw up a question for him. He would think as to why he should always get to live near a railway track. That would sound far too stretched to many, but for a man like him, it was a question to be answered. Having a penchant for smelling things, he would almost always find if he is near a railway track, which he attributed to the strange smell that accompanied the presence of a railway track. Passing through the Vidya Nagar Railway station, he would think and most of the time he would be blank without an answer, but nevertheless he would continue his habit.

The passenger train at 8:35 would always greet him right on time, and soon the monotonous droning of the diesel engine was to be followed by the rattling six bogies. He would wonder as to how heavy and strong the diesel engine should be to drag behind it 6 to 50 bogies weighing 27 tonnes each behind it. That every bogie weighed 27 tonnes was also known by him because he would observe the tare weight of the bogies written on their back sides.

His thinking would vary from the seemingly frivolous and unnecessary to the greater extent where he would be questioning the life as a whole.
His mind running thus, he would walk. No one would be able to say what his thoughts may be. Walking up straight, he observed everything and everyone on his path, turning his head to observe even a small leaf making a sound by the air, the newly painted house no. on the wall of the house he would pass by everyday, all the while when his walk or manner would show him to be a careless, aggressive and a rich man walking very intimidatingly sometimes though. For him, the answers to his never-ending questions alone were the world and not a bit would he be shaken by all the impressions of the world.

The crossing of the railway line 10 feet above the road for which a naturally man made path led to always came in handy. An occasional two-wheel driver would ingeniously cross the tracks and lift the vehicle along with him. No one worried about the crossing of the unmanned railway line at the edge of the railway station, even with the fact that the same area saw about one death every two months. Nobody would care about anything there, for as the people saw it, they had been there for years even before the railway line was built and thus had every right to cross it as they wish. Only the railway authorities did not seem to take notice of this feeling, and did not find it necessary to stop the train and let pedestrians pass. The people with all their reservations allowed it to pass only because the railway engine was too big to fight.

Crossing the rail track, he headed towards the small push-cart, where a idly vendor sold idlies and dosas for breakfast. It was below the tree opposite the bus stop on the other side of the road that was perpendicular to the road leading out of the railway station. He felt lucky as he could have breakfast and then leave for the college boarding the bus just as soon he crossed the road. The entire breakfast routine took him roughly fifteen minutes, time right enough to catch the 08:55 A.M. bus to the college.

Managing the idly-vending business was a bespectacled man of around forty plus years, dark, stout, short and balding on the front side of the head. He adorned eternally, a grey striped shirt with the white markings of all the idly and dosa mixes, as though to show up that he was working all the life with the idlies and the dosas. Sometimes Prakash wondered whether there was a certain cloth manufacturer who manufactured such shirts designed specially for such workmen.

A blue coloured push cart in which there were two kerosene pump stoves, always on fire with a buzzing sound stood before him. On the one corner of the cart, the buzzing stove would hold the big closed cauldron in which the idlies would be made. The other pump stove had a flat pan on it on which dosas were made. In between there would be two vessels, one with the ginger chutney and the other of the coconut variety. With no hotels or tiffin centres around, the idly-vendor always did roaring business from 07:00 A.M. to 10:30 A.M.

This day was not unusual. Prakash walked up swiftly up to the cart. Everyday this rich man with well-ironed clothes would eat idly at this cheap joint. He never cared for such things as for him, what mattered was the action of eating, and morever there were no hotels for half a km on the either side of the road. Grrrrrrrrrr……an occasional bus would pass by, followed by the ever present put-patti auto, all of which were only 5 % of the traffic that was going to build up in two hours of time.

“Plate Idly”, Prakash asked.
The idly-vendor handed over to him two idlies with some chutney of both varieties. Prakash observed that the chutney was not enough for the idly, but did not ask, as he could always ask for more later on. It was a different issue that the vendor was only going to make a show with the spoon which would put not more than a few drops.

Two idlies would not matter for him as his appetite could taste only when he has six of them, and however he had gone on diet to compensate the lack of exercise due to the college and city schedule.

Popping a idly piece smeared with chutney into his mouth, he thought about the idly-vendor.

Thought he, “The taste of the idly is good, and the chutney too, and this man gives it all for four rupees when the hotel charges six rupees for the same. Maybe it is time that somebody should tell this man to take a loan and start a tiffin centre, that he should be thinking on new lines as however there were no hotels or tiffin centres nearby”

Soon the chutney’s existence ended as he kept going over his thoughts and as expected, the chutney was not enough for the other idly.

“Chutney”, said he while holding the plate forward meaningfully.
The idly-vendor looked up and put one more spoon enough for only half a idly. He seemed to serve with a scorn on his face. But Prakash had learnt to come across those things without retaliation and so he ignored that spiteful look.

The chutney was not enough, but he did not want to put the vendor in further discomfort, and so he continued, “One more plate”.

Unmindfully amidst the hissing dosa pan sound and the customers orders, he thought further, “Having a cart since one year, and it seems no one has suggested to him that he could do so many things” The second plate of idly was not coming fast as the vendor was busy doing other things.
The swift morning air made a few autumn leaves fall over the area. With the approaching summer, all the leaves had to make way for the new ones which would sprout again. It always amazed him how the leaves keep up the perfect time table.

“What would this vendor do when the tree runs dry; this poor hard-working man would have no place to go, oh god ! you can be cruel at times”, he was lost in thought, “God does not seem to do justice to these kind of people, they work so hard and yet look at the standard of their life, and some people get all the good things in life without lifting a straw for their sake; surely god is unjust at certain times”.

Seeing that he was still waiting for the second plate, the vendor handed over to him a second serving, the same as the first with the chutney less, this time with only one variety.

He reminded the vendor, “My good man, the ginger chutney too”
“You have already eaten that,” snarled the vendor.

“No! I had not, you never gave it to me” replied Prakash in a firm manner.

“You should be eating less”, grumbled the vendor, “there is no chutney for the likes of you”.

Not to be easily driven off; Prakash pointed out, “My good man, the vessel there still has lot of chutney”.
The vendor turned his head the other way and did not reply.
“Just now, I thought of helping this man, and now he says that to me”, He thought grudgingly, but the self-controlled anger perfected though years of scolding and admonishment from his parents, elders and friends alike, left him in a lurch of what to do.
Trying to control both the feelings of intense anger at the insult and the repeating sunk-suggestions in his mind, his eyes narrowed as his brows frowned. Stilled by the vendor’s behaviour, he did not move; the plate was still in his hand half eaten.
Flashed in his mind, “Maybe people are what they deserve to be”
He pulled himself out, “No! No!”, he reasoned with himself, “This vendor is busy, poor guy, has to cater to others needs as well, may be he is strained to work with the only help of his boy, I will ask him again”.

Thinking thus he repeated his request for some more chutney.
“No chutney for you, did I not tell you?”
said the vendor, “take it or leave it”.
“But if I leave it, you won’t get the money, will you?” Prakash reasoned.
“You have to give the money; I have given you two plates”,
replied the vendor.
“But, how am I supposed to eat if you were not to serve me the chutney”,
Prakash said.
“I don’t know, I have given you what I give others, and no more”, he said.
Furious at such behaviour, Prakash got ready to swing his fist, and said to himself, “One punch and this fellow is finished”, “One kick and this cart is broken forever”.

But the years of repeated assaults on his attitude and behaviour were too great to be overcome, and these suggestions which had by now turned into auto-suggestions told him firmly, “Control your anger!”

“Think what would be the consequence if you were to hit him”, continued the auto-suggestion inside him.
He waited and thought over, popping a piece of idly without chutney into his mouth.

He started saying to himself, “Suppose I hit him, these half-witted people around will say that I had hit a poor man and make me a villain, no one is going to reason why I did that”. He continued, “Suppose no one were to ask and the vendor gets battered, all the sympathy would be his, and then even people who did not know about his push-cart would come to know of it and soon he would have more publicity, more business and more money”.

He wondered, “On the other hand, this fellow may remember this battery, go into contemplation of his actions and reform himself”.

“And suppose he reforms even temporarily, with the reformed character and the taste his dishes offer, he would make a big profit, put up a hotel and make himself a rich man, and by being a rich man his attitude would return and he would hurt more people by the time in a more reformed manner, given the power money would give him”.

“Had he not seen small hotels fail in business, while little cart vendors go on to become a household name in the society, but why does that happen?”
“But this vendor had insulted me, and I should punish him”, he was furious inside trying to break the mind block that years of mental conditioning had done. He had to give vent to his anger and damage the vendor.

“Wait my boy, did you say PUNISH?”
Prakash was perplexed, “What? Who?” It was his inner voice speaking.
“Did you not feel a little while ago that god was doing injustice to this hard-working man?”
Taken aback and not expecting such a direct question which was more like an answer, that too within himself, he muttered to himself as would a small little school boy who gets caught doing something wrong would say.
“I………..I did”
“Now you see”, told the inner voice, “All the men get only what they deserve, some get their results visibly and immediately, others feel it later in life”.
“What do I do now?” Prakash questioned himself.
“You know boy, you know”, told the inner voice.
“Do I leave him alone and go off then?” he asked himself, but there were no thoughts and no inner voice, only silent blank feelings.

Returning to his normal self, Prakash understood and told himself, “It is true that I don’t need to punish him; God has punished him already by giving him this life, try as this vendor may, he is not going to go further up in his life, because his own fool hardy haughtiness is going to come in his way”

He popped another piece of idly in his mouth and left the remaining one and half as though in protest and wanted to throw it, but his thoughts told him, “Place it as usual, just leave the other idly to uphold your own self-respect”.
“Okay”, he obeyed himself, placed the plate down and washed his hands.
He felt happy at his decision as he realised that the vendor was undergoing punishment all by himself at the hands of God. He slipped his fingers into his shirt pocket and fished out a five rupee note followed by a two rupee and a one rupee coin, and gave the eight rupees to the vendor, who threw it in his box.

“This fellow does not even respect the money he earns”, he observed to himself.
He turned back swiftly while noticing that the vendor looked a triumphant man, for the vendor had anticipated a show down but was all too relieved on being let off, and he must have been patting himself for his haughty behaviour.
Down came the bus by the slope and halted at the bus stop where Prakash was standing facing the vendor’s push cart. He boarded the bus in a trice and said, “PASS”, to the conductor who came to hand down a ticket.

On the left corner of the last seat in the bus, he sat wondering in himself, and looked at the vendor for the last time, while he seemed to say, “Soon you would continue to behave in such a manner and that would become a habit with you, your business would fall down and you would be where you are; all because I did not chose to vent my anger, and all because I understood that all the people are where they are only because they are the result of their own actions”.

The bus moved forward on the conductor’s whistle, and it was time for him to look for other things to dwell his mind upon, as he finally said to himself, “God has his own queer ways in this world”.