“ATHIDHI DEVO BAVAH”

At this time of the year, for hundreds of Infoscions, every Sunday, two Modern Colleges in Pune would become what jaggery is for flies. They go there either in the morning or in the afternoon, but make sure they are there. The reason: To fight a bloody battle that resembles a bigger battle, which they aim to fight later this year. They sit in these colleges, killing each other for a good 2.5 hours and coming out feeling crippled intellectually. Well, I do not want to talk about this any further for fear of going dyslexic as I get lost whenever I see my performance in these battles.

I am no exception for the hundreds of Infoscions, for that matter thousands of others who does the aforementioned ritual, religiously every week. Last Sunday was no exception either. I reached there on my AP registered Honda, extremely careful not to get into the eyes of an ever vigilant Cop (hence forth called as mama.) only to find a lots of mamas standing at the gates of the Battle Ground (Modern Law College). Preliminary enquiry told me that, the war which I have to fight has been postponed as there around 34000 wannabe mamas fighting the war for some 1000 posts, I guess. And I need to wait till the mamas and wannabe mamas clear off. I waited near the gate.

Within no time, the flies gathered around the jaggery. There are singles envying the boy friend-girl friend pairs coming on the Pulsar with female making sure that there is no amount of air passing between the male’s back and her front. And then there is a group of warriors puffing their lungs with their daily dose of Nicotine. Amidst all these actions, I observed to two stout figures approaching the scene, they were wearing a white shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, with a pot like think bulging out from area common to their shirt and pants. It looked as if they stuffed the whole thing forcefully inside. It hardly took anytime for me to realize that they are mamas. They have come here to over see the situation, you cannot have a chaos out side, you know?

One of these mamas, who happened to have good business sense, picked out his mobile, dialed a number and made some sounds, the first of which being “ kuthey ahe” and whatever spoken later by him did not seem to effect my brain any more, as the rest of the sounds went through the hole between my ears(I do not understand Marathi L) and with in no time another mama appeared in a truck and four guys jumped out of the truck and emptied around a dozen bikes from that area with in no time and disappeared from the scene. Only then did I figure out what he had spoken on phone; Great business sense, in deed.

Amidst all the drama, I hardly noticed a family living on the footpath along side the gates of the College. But, what is so special, it is not a surprise in my country, which always has something in the bag for rich and poor equally. But, why am I mentioning about this particular family? And what made me notice them? Was that my selfish nature or is it the natural tendency of an Indian? The questions which I asked just now might not have made sense to you, I will explain.

All the drama that was started has reached the climax, when Pune’s weather as expected started behaving in an unexpected way. The clouds filled the whole sky and the sun was hardly seen. And by this time, a few of the warriors disappeared, a few persisted and in no time a heavy down pour started, I along with a few other warriors ran for the shade under the tree that was next to the foot path family’s house. It was no use, the precipitation was heavy and the leaves of the tree are too weak to resist the rain. Some thing has to be done!

As every one was trying their best to save themselves from the rain, I saw a large roll of plastic has been rolled out; two kids came from no where and tied the plastic roll to the tree- V’oila- The make shift rain shelter of the footpath family was ready. My first instinct was to jump into the plastic sheet and so did a few of others and one among them who happened to be an extremely HYGENIC female, was not happy with the cleanliness of the plastic sheet, she made a noise CHEEE…… I felt like kicking her, but resisted, do not ask me why, of late I have become pretty considerate. The footpath family was pretty happy to see the crowd using their shelter and they were more than happy to open a second roll of plastic, this one is exclusively for the guests.

I was more than impressed to see the courteous nature of my hosts. They might have never been to school neither do they know what “athithi devo bavah” means, but they were courteous and handsomely so. It left me short of comprehension to describe their courteous nature and as I was thinking, the rain faded and the mamas were done and the warriors were ready for the fight and hence the host was left behind as all the opportunists emptied the footpath home. And so did I.

I entered the battle field, I fought and fought and was beaten black and blue for 2.5 hours, but I was able to fight, because I was not drenched in the rain as those crows on the tree, which almost dropt on my head, thanks to the foot path family. As I rode my bike out, I just glanced at them; they were their usual self, as if nothing happened, little did they know that they made a difference to a person and at least a dozen others like me. And as I passed by, I took an oath “athithi devo bavah”.