Budki's World: English literature

At the Zebra Crossing

To cross or not to cross? That was the question which baffled him for more than an hour. Puzzled and petrified, he helplessly watched the speeding vehicles passing by. The civility on the road demanded that drivers should stop or slow down near the zebra crossing and let pedestrians cross the road, but they did not show any signs of responsibility. Why should they? There were no policemen to regulate them at this place. Self-discipline is something unknown in our country. Every driver is in a hurry and wants to overtake the other.

Under the circumstances, the pedestrians in Delhi throw caution to the wind while crossing the roads. They watch the flowing traffic for a while and, at the first available opportunity, push ahead to make way for themselves. His case, however, was different. He could not muster enough courage to cross this busy road. The lorries, motorcars, jeeps, motor-bicycles, scooters and auto-rickshaws were speeding mercilessly past him. He feared that one of them might crush him to death in a similar manner to how his son had been crushed a day before. He was aware of his liabilities at home and therefore did not want to die so soon.

Black and white stripes on the roads meant for pedestrians were hardly visible in the place where he had come from, or more appropriately, had been forced to come from. In the entire district, one could notice just a few zebra crossings in certain posh areas, which had no utility except that they were indicative of a VIP area. You could walk across any road, anywhere and at any time. The vehicles would slow down automatically and even stop to allow you to cross the road.

Nonetheless, in metropolitan cities, such black and white stripes offered an open invitation to persons wanting to cross the busy road, assuring them precedence and safe passage. It is the duty and responsibility of every driver to stop when people are walking over the stripes.

Duty…! Responsibility…! Good gracious…! He felt nauseated and reacted instantly, “Who cares about duties and responsibilities in this country? Everyone wants to outwit everyone else. Even if a few people lose their lives or get hurt, it does not matter because human life has no value in this overpopulated country.”

At that very instant, a Mercedes sped past him, leaving a gap of just a whisker. Shivers ran down his spine. He withdrew both his feet from the road immediately for fear of being run over. He was reminded of the death of his son the day before. His son had also attempted to cross a road when he was run over by a speeding truck. The body had lain in a pool of blood the whole night till it was noticed the next morning. The police registered a case against an unknown driver, conducted a post-mortem of the body, and in the end declared the case as untraced. It would not have been difficult for the police to trace the murderer had they pursued the case sincerely, but they were not willing to shoulder additional responsibility. In our country, the police are overburdened with traffic violation cases and many of these concern VIPs. However, the police found a diary on the dead body, which helped them trace his house and hand him over to his parents. Otherwise, the body would have been consumed as unclaimed.

Trace his house…! Was it worth calling a house? A tattered canvas tent, repaired at several places, which gave it a patchy look. The family of six huddled up to spend their allotted days. They were forced to abandon their majestic house in Anantnag, Kashmir. A building of three storeys with a foundation made of green flawless stones drawn from one of the most reputed quarries, walls made of high-quality bricks, ceilings, doors and windows made of deodar wood and an inclined roof covered with Tata corrugated galvanised iron sheets, which did not permit snow to stick to it for too long. The building was surrounded by lush green meadows and paddy fields that extended up to the foothills on the far side. At a short distance from the main door of the house, one could see a large stone mortar placed permanently under a huge walnut tree. Four-foot-high wooden pestles were kept in the cow shed nearby for use by the women of the household to pound paddy, red chillies and condiments during the autumn season, accompanied by melodious Kashmiri songs. Behind the house grew many almond, plum and peach trees, blossoms of which would enchant the passers-by. The family obtained grains, pulses, vegetables, fruits and marigold flowers for the entire year from their own farm and refrained from making any additional purchases from the market.

Many a time, he had thought of going on a pilgrimage to the four dhams across the country before his mortal self would breathe its last, but his ties with the family prevented him from doing so. All his life, he had not ventured out of his small town except on a few occasions when he had gone to Srinagar, where minibuses, tempos, and taxis had not yet replaced tongas. He saw the train for the first time after migrating from the valley.

“What a fool am I? What wild thoughts besiege my mind? That house is a lost dream. Never to be seen again,” He laughed at himself and continued thinking. “They call this suffocating, torn tent a house. My cowshed at Anantnag was bigger than this tent.”

Suddenly, he remembered the face of his lost son. His son was a tall, fair and handsome youth with apple-red cheeks and sky-blue eyes that fairies would yearn to possess. He was intelligent as well as sharp in his studies and got excellent reports from his school. Yet one thing that differentiated him from his class fellows was his compassion and sentimental behaviour. Lately, he had started brooding and thinking endlessly about his glorious past, insecure present and uncertain future. He must have been lost in his thoughts at the time of crossing the road and was therefore run over by the truck.

“Brooding has become a permanent feature of this afflicted community, coupled with hypertension and diabetes. Nobody can escape. This is what they will leave as a heritage for their future generations till the whole community becomes extinct and part of history,” he shook his head briskly to get rid of all the painful thoughts. Then he fixed his gaze on the pedestrian crossing in front of him. It was as expectant as ever, shining bright under the scorching sun. The vehicular traffic, too, was as brisk as before.

He gathered his courage and moved his right foot forward to walk over the stripes. At that very moment, a speeding motor bicycle passed by, almost touching his advanced foot and leaving him no option but to pull it back hastily. The biker turned round and spewed abuse at him, calling him blind. He was at a loss to understand how to cross the road under such circumstances.

It was the month of June with scorching sun overhead. His family had cautioned him about the high temperature outside, but being a villager, he was confident of his physical fitness. He had no choice but to leave his home to collect his monthly relief and rations, for which he had to traverse a distance of around ten kilometres. Earlier, he was entitled to sixteen hundred rupees a month, but after the death of his son, he could draw twelve hundred rupees only as relief.

His son was a great asset to him. The young man would do all the work, such as collecting rations and relief, purchasing bread and vegetables from the market, taking his parents to the doctor and getting them the prescribed medicines. But now the entire burden had fallen on his old shoulders, worn out by time and circumstances.

Being a peasant, he was entirely dependent on the meagre relief provided by the government, unlike government servants who were assured of their full salaries without work. Worse still, in Anantnag, he lived jointly with his two brothers, but at the time of migration, the three fled in three different directions, and nobody knew where the other person had gone. Anyway, he was successful in taking his family safely out of the valley, which by itself was a great solace to him. He had rescued his wife, a son and two teenage daughters, not knowing that Death awaited his son on one of Delhi's roadways.

“Relief of just twelve hundred rupees and rations for the family every month, besides a tattered tent to take shelter under,” he lamented, “Neither a roof overhead nor a piece of land to stand on. Moreover, so many mouths to feed. What a contrast! There was a time when everything was in plenty: wealth, food grains, dry fruits, and spices. We used to expect one or the other guest in our home every day and cook food for one or two extra people. What a turn the wheel of fortune had taken! We have to live from hand to mouth now. Out of twelve hundred rupees, the clerk in the relief commissioner's office takes away one hundred as his commission. What remains is eleven hundred rupees to feed four mouths, purchase their apparel and pay for their education. My wife is illiterate and unskilled and cannot get a job. It had never occurred to us that such a day would ever come in our lives. The only hope was my son, who was snatched away by the jaws of death even before he could complete his studies. All that is left are two daughters who are studying in school.”

All of a sudden, he remembered that his wife wanted him to return home before lunch. She had given him a small towel wetted with ice-cold water which by now had dried up. He turned around and asked for time from the water-seller beside him.

“It is quarter past one,” sharp came the reply. The vendor had curiously watched him since he had stood there and felt pity for him. “Babuji, you have been standing in this scorching sun for more than an hour. Pray tell me, where do you want to go?”

“I want to cross this road but this uncontrolled traffic does not allow me to do so,” he replied.

“So many people have crossed since the time you stood here. What are you afraid of?”

“No, no, the traffic is so much and so fast that anyone may crush me. Then where will my family go? I have already lost my only son recently while crossing a road. The drivers should at least have some consideration for those walking on foot. Nobody is bothered. Brother, it is not so in our town. Neither too much traffic nor too much speed. No, not at all. In our place, if an old man is unable to cross the road on his own, people will catch hold of his hand and help him till he reaches the other end. I have done it myself so many times when I was young.”

He wondered why people in this city were so apathetic and inhuman, and then laughed to himself. “What a fool am I? Which place do I claim to be mine? If that is my town, then what am I doing here under this scorching sun?”

“Babuji, please have this glass of water. You need not pay for it,” the vendor said while handing over a glass of ice-cold water to him. “You seem flustered. Which country are you from?”

“Country…! What makes you think so? No, brother, I belong to this very country. I am no foreigner.” He drank the water in one sip and requested the vendor to wet his towel if possible.

Having said so, he suddenly felt speechless and again started thinking, “Belong to this country…! How? How do I call this country my own? The country that could not ensure my security or sustain me. Isn’t it strange that a person has become a refugee in his own country?”

“Babuji, it seems you wanted to say something but stopped short.”

“Brother, what do I say? There is nothing left for me to say. I have become a refugee in my own country.”

“Babuji, it seems the traffic has thinned out. This is the best time to cross.”

He looked at the road in front of him. The traffic had really become less compared to what it was earlier. Possibly, it had thinned down due to lunchtime in the offices. So he mustered up the courage and put forward his feet one after the other on the black and white stripes. Instantly, he turned around and nodded his gratitude to the vendor and then moved his feet briskly.

One...two...three...four...five...six...seven...eight... and so on, till he reached the other end of the road.

He stopped on the footpath at the other end and heaved a sigh of relief. Then he wiped his sweaty face with his wet towel. He was feeling feverish. His whole body had turned into a furnace by now. His head was reeling, his eyes had become blurred, and he could not see anything around him. Frothing at the mouth, he fell like a chopped tree right on the footpath.

The vendor whose eyes were fixed on him was shocked. He ran across the road with a bottle of ice-cold water in his hand and sprinkled it over his head, but it was too late. The body was lying motionless on the footpath with white foam in the mouth, and the pulse had already stopped.

People started gathering around the dead body, and soon the police came by, picked up the dead body and took it away in a van. For the police, it was simply a case of heat stroke. That is what it meant for them, another addition to the statistical register of deaths due to sunstroke.

*****