Cabbie - Dusk...

The bus that had taken me from my home now drops me back.

I have made one more stop before returning to my rapidly darkening slum. I only have two hundred left with me now… and the small brown wrapped package that I have bought.

The walk back seems unaccountably long.

Every shadow and pale glimmer of light seeping out from the barred windows seem alien… who would say I was here just a handful of hours ago.

A few older men gather around the culvert swapping tales… each improbable and unrealistic…. Each tale screaming of a poverty ridden fool’s desperation for comfort….

I unconsciously hold the small bundle tighter.

I remember my first days out here… the first few days after leaving the village to work in the city… working as a laborer... sharing a room with four other workers in an unfinished building.

From there to learning to drive… getting married and renting out the small tin room with what I received.

Seems like so many years ago now… ten to be exact.

Saving up a few bucks at a time… to buy a stove… keeping money aside each month to buy kerosene… and trying to surreptitiously make do with as little we can live on to provide as much as possible for the child.

Today… is the day on which, ten years ago, I was married.

Ten years now… that my wife became a part of the curse that is my existence….

All I have given her is poverty… I have taken her to live in a tiny hovel that I only got because her father….

That is all I have been able to do in ten long years.

I have been saving up for almost seven months for this.

This… one small token of gratitude… of thanks….

I can only work one day in three… other drivers are scheduled to work in the days between. Saving… had not been easy.

I reach my tin door.

A lamp is burning inside and its light sneaks out below the door.

I am almost afraid to enter… the lump in my throat is painful to swallow. I can just stand on my own doorstep forever… thinking of the immediate future that might never come to pass.

Eventually I enter… my wife is cooking our dinner… my son looks up from his toy… a small yellow taxi… and smiles at me.

His books are neatly arranged in the corner of the bed. I know that my wife has made him study… or at least sit down with his books earlier. Neither of us knows if he has actually studied….

I go over to my wife and wordlessly hand over the little brown packet.

She opens it cautiously… inside the red saree of a new bride… another thing I had failed to provide ten years ago.

“Ten years…” the only words that she utters… her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

 I nod… not trusting myself to speak. She turns away… back to mind her cooking, casually swiping her eyes with the back of her hands.

I move away too… I change into my house clothes and take my uniform to the communal tap to wash… it will have the whole day tomorrow to dry.

I shall be unemployed for the next couple of days as other people drive the taxis.

I might even be able to see my son off to school.