Those Eyes

Like on any regular evening, I took the backseat in my office bus sharp at 5:34. Feeling like munching something, I roved my eyes around to find a local vendor standing behind the bus selling popcorn, bhelpuri, namkeen, chana on his push cart. I love popcorn a lot, but it was not ready just yet. I thought the bus would take quite some more time before all the cab mates arrive.

I asked the vendor for popcorn worth 10 Rs. Promptly, he threw a handful of raw corn into the black kadhai, and covered it with a lid. I was desperately waiting for the fresh, crispy, hot popcorn, when the popping sound started echoing within the vessel.But before, he could pour the popcorn out, the last passenger had arrived, the bus engine roared and we started pacing away from the popcorn-wala.

What I could see behind fading with distance was the popcorn vendor holding the packet of popcorn looking towards our running bus, and his eyes-full of despair, as if something has been looted away from him. Yes, his 10 Rs - the cost of his courage to keep standing in the hot for whole day, the cost of his sweat, the cost of books of his children, medicine for his sick wife, food for his family, and yes, his hope that the tired people coming out of this office would like to buy something from his stall, was this much.

They were the eyes which made me feel guilty. I don’t know what he does with the stale popcorn, neither do I know what do the other vendors, who you can easily see in numbers at almost all busy traffic signals, do with the burnt agarbattis, the coconut pieces, the roasted namkeen papad, and the inflated balloons. But more than that, I could not understand why we, the disgruntled rich, keep bargaining with the poor street vendors. So as to only elope as soon as the signal turns green, leaving behind those eyes.

Those eyes, speak of the poverty of our nation, the breach of hope of every poor citizen who is still making efforts to draw out a little money from the rich for the night meal.

And most unfortunately, those eyes tell us the attitude of some sulky people like us, who pass most of the time on road and at traffic signals in bargaining with the poor. Those eyes show how poor we ourselves are, may be more than them.

Here is the photo of a little poor seller, my friend captured after buying the bouquet from her…