White-
clad, brown-headed, but looking sleek
the
stick’ been the bête noire of health geeks.
But
not to me, buddies, never for once in the past.
My
alter ego the stick was and my macho’s logo
vicissitudes
of life together we faced with cheers,
and
puffing on her ever, braved I’d life’s fears.
But
soon came a day-- a day of reckoning
when
off she went from me with a smirk and in a huff
as
I’d vowed to my gods not to puff. Neither she’d
now
caresses my craving lips nor fills my lungs
with
smoke and keep my blood warm and me charm.
Thrown
I’d my dear ciggy and got her bond broken, not
for
health sake but after seeing a shriveled
lame
beggar in a fast moving unit train and hearing his
piteous
cries for a single rupee coin.
A
scrawny lame beggar hardly he could walk
and
his face, a crushed lemon rind, everyone’d sulk.
A
strap of loincloth on his hip was only his outfit.
With
unkempt hair and blowing grey beard
hands
he’d extend to all for alms: food or coins.
Drumming
on his hollowed stomach, he’d sing old
songs
from past flicks with a caressing voice.
Peeving
at his presence, people in the train
threw
at him coins, not out of sympathy
but
to shift him elsewhere as they began
to
die of the foul smell his outfit was emitting.
Piercing
my soul was the beggar’s heart-rending plight
and
goading me it was not to pursue the smoking delight.
‘No
more ciggy. Flirt with her not and give the mendicant
all
the money you would save not smoking’. A voice
I
heard calling me from under my heart and
obeyed
it at once as a tusker to his mahout.
Folding
his hands over his empty tummy and
Curling
himself up in the floor of a train station
I
saw the beggar at last after a long search. When
A
fifty-rupee note he got from me thrust on his hands
he
cried in ecstasy not believing his eyes.
Kneeling
down at my feet and wetting them with tears
he
mumbled thanks and ran over to a food-stall.
In
jitters went my blood craving for nicotine, but
firm
I was clinging to my vow for the beggar’s sake.
Going
well on my bucks that I gave him daily, he,
with
gaiety, limped thro trains and cringed for alms.
New
robes he wore on now, showing no more hunger pangs.
None
in the train now shooed him away, as
he
was so clean and tidy, singing new movie songs.
Elated
I was reveling in what I’d done to a poor soul,
Which,
besides saving me from the stick, gave a new
purpose
to my life and a new meaning to my existence. But,
short-lived
was my elation, as I didn’t see the beggar for days.
‘Who
knows, he may be dead and gone now’ said a train colleague
making
me search for him every train station.
Good
heavens! I saw to my relief alive was the mendicant. But
lying
inebriated in a secluded dark pavement, he was
with
a shabby beggar woman. Puffing on a long ciggy and
letting
out bellows of smoke around him, he was in a stupor.
Around
him littered were cigts butts and empty bottles of beer.
Kissing
and caressing the woman he babbled in booze:
‘I’ve
a moron for my benefactor. Why should I go then and beg?’
The
woman laughed when she heard him mimic my voice.
Petrified,
I felt my head reeling and heart breaking bits and pieces.
‘Is
showing compassion to a poor a crime?
Had
I thrown pearls before a mud-smearing pig?
Did
I mistake a serpentine a coil of rope?
While
I stood speechless and got slapped by questions,
the
beggar took the woman to a loo.
