My Ride to Work

Its 9:00 in the morning I just got dressed, had breakfast then sat with my wife and my dear daughter to a say a word of prayer before we all start off for our day. Sweet kisses were blown, good byes were said and I revved up my little car. I had to give miss-calls to three of my colleagues so that they would all wait for me at their doorsteps. Winding my way through d-block, f-block and h-block I pick them
all up and we head towards my office. We have agreed to a car pool arrangement so we all stick together and reach back home also together.

We are a curious bunch as I work in .Net (IT jargon - its just a language like we speak Hindi / English, computers understand a different language from ours e.g. - Java, .Net, C, C++, etc.), one of the colleague works in Java, another one works in VB and then one is from HR.

Leaving Vikas puri we enter Janak puri were we regularly fuel-up from the b-block petrol pump sometimes with embarassing incidents like petrol pump guy asking - sir kya apne kadi company me laga rakhi hai kya (Sir have you put your vehicle on some kind of a company duty) and some other times peacefully making our way to Jail road from the Hari Nagar depot crossing.

Now we settle back for a long and hopefully a peaceful ride, person sitting in the front left has to act as the DJ putting on the music system and switching to appropriate FM stations so that we get to hear more songs and less of advertisements. We all have varied taste in listening to the music. While I can listen to western pop, western classical, Christian, Hindi music to even news and other special programs on National channel others are not so flexible they prefer their standard Hindi music or Punjabi stuff.

Though the ride is smooth for car its really crazy for the ears as it tries to make sense of the constant traffic noise, chit chat chatter of the occupants, and non stop radio playing FM. Soon we have climbed up the Delhi cantt fly-over and I am looking down with a child like excitement towards my left just to catch a glimpse of a passing train.

I miss the trains so much. I find traveling in train to be a different world all together. There is never a time when I look at a train and don’t feel overjoyed. I have a collection of wallpapers of trains of different kinds and colors.
Just looking at one of these huge machines on a morning hours brightens my day.

Soon we take left from Thimaya park round about (sorry its no more a round
about but they have made it into a regular four way crossing) famous for immoral trafficking under the watchful eyes of police trafficking we move on to Brar square. Soon we pass under the swanky flyovers of Dhaula Kuan making our way on the ring road to find the ARSD College on our right reminding us of our college days (It specially reminds me of Giriraj my school mate who did his B.Sc Physics (H) from here). Adjacent to ARSD College is the Venkateswara College that used to have best rock shows in the south Delhi campus during our times. Slightly inside is the Moti Lal Nehru college were I myself studied (this also reminds me of another friend Cheeru or Sriram who also studied from here). On the other side and somewhat more interior is the Jesus and Marry College where Hephzibah and her friends studied.

By this time we have set up a steady pace and are climbing flyovers one by one, Moti bagh flyover, Hyatt flyover, Safdarjung enclave flyover, AIIMS flyover, South EX flyover, and finally the Ashram flyover. At this point we leave ring road and branch off to the DND - flyway. It’s a smooth ride on the toll road over the Yamuna river with one stoppage were you flash your monthly pass (DND - card) bringing the toll road to an end at Rajnigandha chok on the Noida side.

From here on the entire stretch to office is punctuated by a series of traffic lights at regular intervals. At each of these traffic lights you will find lots of self made marketing guys from rags trying to sell car dusters, dusting cloth, tissue paper boxes, funny looking toys, rose flowers, balloons, Indian flags, and yes the latest from the literary world (Dan Browns, Jeffery Archer, Paul Cohelo, etc.).

Aah how can I miss the most omnipresent community (babu paise dede re, bhagwan bhala karega, tumara joda banayega, abe driver se kya mangta hai memsab se mangna, etc. etc.) of our country, yes I mean the beggars. No matter what the time or what the place they seem to be waiting for you everywhere. Some would be carrying a small baby with them while others would start cleaning your car with those horrible clothes they have. Most of the people ignore them while some are more charitable. I seem to dwindle between the two, never sure when to be charitable and when to be rude. Every time one of them comes up to my car I dread to face them. If I were to give two rupees to each one who came-up to my window I would have shelled out approximately one hundred rupees (10 signals, approx 5 beggars per signal - 10 x 5 x 2) by the time I reached my office. That would be a total of two hundred a day, (23 x 200) 4600 rupees in a month.

But then I remember what Jesus said - "(Mat 5:42) To him that asks of thee give, and from him that desires to borrow of thee turn not away" and I am torn at my heart for the spirit is willing but the body is not, the heart is willing but the mind is not. I know there are many that would say that giving arms to beggars only makes there plight worse, or it actually encourages begging, or that they actually commit atrocities on little children so as to invoke pity in our sight or its just not practical to give arms to every beggar you find. I know only one thing that they are poor and I am supposed to face them and extend my hands to help them because I can afford it. Some even say that they are actually richer than us and are actually into business of begging so that they don’t have to work. Then I ask myself, does it matter whether they are well off or poor, if they are cheating on me or not. Who am I to judge them, for the judgment is the Lord’s? They will answer for their actions one day to their Creator meanwhile I have been asked to help them who are needy and poor.

With dread and confusion I make it through last of the traffic signal and reach my office parking. Its 10:30 am I press my finger against the finger print scanner for my attendance and another day at work has just begun.