Hats off !!!

One Friday night, I was all excited heading to my home town after a month’s gap. It is a 6 hours journey from Bangalore. Had a ticket in a travels that was just a kilometer away from where I reside. The bus was to depart at 11 o clock. So tired after the days work, I managed to cook dinner and packed my luggage and started from home to find an auto-rickshaw at around 10 o clock. I had one big bag with clothes and one handbag with some valuables. Long after enquiring many auto drivers, finally one person agreed to take me to the travels though he demanded for double the charge. Had no option but to say ok. I kept the big bag I was carrying inside and before I could get in, aghast, he alighted!!! I was helpless. Could not scream and could not call out for help as I am just the migrant to Bangalore and I don’t speak kannada, the native language. Just then, there came another auto-rickshaw asking where I need to go. I just pleaded him to follow the auto-rickshaw that was just few meters away. He politely agreed but the stern look on his face annoyed me too much. May be he got worried thinking that I am trying to do some adventure. We were caught in the signal when the other auto went past the signal. Now I knew there is no way to follow-up. Somehow, looking at this new driver, I was more scared imagining that it looks like a planned trap – one guy taking away my bag and the other auto guy taking me away. So I got down immediately giving him some money, more than that he could demand for that short distance. He happily got it for the few meters he drove. I was totally lost on a busy road. No one to help me out and I felt like a total stranger to the place where I have already lived for two years. I was a bit emotionally shaken. I gathered my strength and got into another auto-rickshaw and reached the travels. I went inside the travels to get the boarding pass. The officer in the desk said,” Mam, did you miss your bag in any auto by any chance? We had an auto driver here sometime back saying that someone who is supposed to reach this travels has missed the bag in his auto. He said that the person wore a pink suit so we are telling you. He is somewhere outside looking out for the person who missed it”. My god! I was speechless. I went out immediately looking for him and in less than a minute’s time, found him in a corner looking around with my bag. I had no words to say how I felt. For a while, I scolded him in my language and he scolded me in his language. Then I understood, it was an accident that he went away without even seeing whether I got in or not. I was just imagining how he would have felt turning around to see an empty auto on the way when he was driving. Felt like laughing out loud. He probably would have thought for an instance that it was a “bhoot” [devil] :-D I was very much moved to see him so concerned about my bag that he got it to the travels and in search of me. I was happy and I offered him the charge I agreed to give him and he refused it. Hats-off to him! He is a youth of this generation, Someone who made me realize that truth is very much alive in the world so mean at times.