Siddhartha is busy capturing few screenshots for a document which has to be sent to the user today. He did it hurriedly, as he saw his colleague Ganesh waiting for him to leave.
He looks at the watch it’s already 10 minutes past 6 PM. They both travel to office together by an auto rickshaw to avoid driving during peak hours. Ganesh yelled “Come on Sid, Manohar has already arrived and is waiting for us”.
Siddhartha finished his work and left office along with Ganesh. They see the clouds dark grey in colour and anticipated heavy rain today same as last evening.
Manohar sarcastically asked, did you guys sleep in the office? Ganesh replied that Sid was ‘Hardly working….. … I mean working hard… ’. It started raining and as they reached half way, it turned into a heavy downpour with strong winds. Huge traffic piled up as roads got flooded and vehicles moved at snail pace.
All three got little drenched though Manohar has kept plastic tarpaulin in the sides of rickshaw. Water logging increased significantly as it was pouring. Manohar drove slowly dodging the potholes on the road. After sometime the vehicle comes to a standstill. Siddhartha sees a guy on the bike completely drenched and standing in the traffic. He thinks of the biker’s plight in these rains and the dangers due to open drains. He expressed this to Ganesh and they started conversing about the bad civic amenities.
Manohar looks around and sees a kid falling into drain along with his grandmother. He says it loudly that a kid has fallen, Ganesh and Siddhartha is shocked but they couldn’t see due to side tarpaulin. Suddenly they hear a loud scream. They hear a woman grieving and howling for help. Siddhartha jumps out of the rickshaw to see what is happening and he sees a kid and an old lady getting washed away in the drain. He ran towards the drain shouting for help and tried to hold the lady but he couldn’t due to the force of water and fell down. He didn’t know what to do as the water flow is so intense and they went ahead of him. He got up and started running shouting for help. His heart is pounding and he is screaming like hell when he sees a stone which lay on the drain ahead. Suddenly a man came from opposite direction and got into the drain holding the sides of walls strongly. Another man got into the drain and stood behind the first man in a few meters distance. On seeing this Siddhartha ran fast and held the first man, so that he doesn’t loosen the grip. More crowds joined and the man lifted the kid from the drain and gave to the people. People in the crowd patted on kid’s back, everybody felt relieved to see the kid alive. Then they got hold of the old lady and lifted her up from the drain. All this while the old lady was screaming and her daughter was also screaming running back. Now when the crowd said everything is fine and not to worry, the old lady looked for another kid. The crowd became tensed and Siddhartha went running to see if the kid is there in the drain. At that moment Manohar came saying that he kept other kid safely in the nearby restaurant. Actually, the whole family fell in the drain but the old lady’s daughter was able to hold the current and come out. That’s when she gave the kid to Manohar and he kept him safe.
Siddhartha went running to the restaurant to see the other kid handed over to her grandmother. He sees the family together and tells them to be careful. He felt good that no one lost their life but screaming of old lady was still echoing in his ears. He is still in shock and stood still in the road completely drenched. Manohar asks him to get into the rickshaw and they leave the place as the traffic started moving. All three of them were very silent. Siddhartha was emotionally hurt seeing the plight of that family and he tells that if that man wouldn’t have jumped into drain, the kid would have died. He feels painful emotionally and cries. Ganesh says that it’s God’s will they are saved.
Siddhartha listens to him and in his mind he says thanks to God. He feels to hug him tight and cry. He asks a question within himself wiping his teary eyes where are you? After few minutes, once he comes out of that shock, he hears an inner voice in him saying that “I was just around. You came and held me”. Siddhartha smiles and says “We are too busy to notice him and he is always just around us”.
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