A split-second decision on the streets of Delhi leads the author to an unexpected literary windfall.
When I landed in Delhi in 1989 after getting a job in the Central Secretariat, I faced the basic problem that most newcomers to a mega city in India face, accommodation. However, I was lucky that a friend of mine from Irinjalakuda was already in Delhi working in a private firm. He invited me to join him where he was staying in Paschim Vihar with a bunch of other bachelors. Filled with trepidation but with no other option in sight I joined a motley crew of five bachelors in a Janta flat in Paschim Vihar. A Janta (people’s in Hindi) flat consisted of one and a half rooms.
The one room was a bedroom, and the half room was a sort of ante room that had five doors radiating off it, one the entry from outside, one leading to a postage-stamp sized balcony, one to a poky little kitchen, one to the toilet and one to the bathroom. With so many doors leading off it the half room was full of people trooping in or out and so effectively couldn’t be used for anything useful.
The basic living space was thus the one bedroom, and it had room for just one bed and a couple of folding chairs. It also had a small table with a black and white TV, a small stand holding my radio/ cassette player and my collection of rock music cassettes.
The challenges inherent in living in one room with a bunch of diverse characters can be imagined. As there was only one bed, we took turns using that and the others slept on mattresses on the floor. These were rolled up and stashed in a corner in the morning. We did our cooking ourselves and this was of the most rudimentary kind. Food was just something to keep body and soul together and was wolfed down, not because of extreme hunger, but so that the unpleasant taste of overcooked, undercooked or burnt food (as the case may be) did not linger long on the palate.
I was the kind who liked some peace and quiet once I was home after a tiring day’s work writing gibberish on Government files. I liked to curl up with a good book, but this was just not possible in the flat when two guys were acrimoniously debating the vagaries of the Indian cricket team’s middle order, one was raucously mangling one of Kalyanji Anandji’s and Kishoreda’s more tuneful compositions and a fourth was watching a soap opera on Doordarshan at full volume.
I wasn’t even allowed to list to my beloved Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Tom Petty and Pink Floyd tapes as all of my friends had an antipathy towards rock music and threated to turn physical if I assailed their sensitive ears with what they termed as a cacophony. I used to dread going home after work and lingered in office as long as possible, playing Prince of Persia on the computer after office hours or just reading a book which I carried to office in my ever-present cloth bag called a jhola up north. That jhola rendered yeoman service though it was a source of constant merriment to my colleagues.
As we had a five-day week I faced two days of excruciating and lingering torture on Saturdays and Sundays when I couldn’t escape to the blessed peace and organised chaos of a Central Government office. The Chinese Water torture or being incarcerated in an Iron Maiden was preferable to weekends, as far as I was concerned. The only solution was to get out of the place as early as possible and return as late as I could, having had dinner at a dhaba so that I could be spared the culinary tortures I faced in the flat.
Visits to Daryaganj took care of my Sundays, once I discovered that magical market. Saturdays were a problem. I solved that by leaving early in the morning by around 7 am, having a nice filling breakfast of puttu and chana at Kerala Hotel in Channa Market, Karol Bagh or masala dosas at Madras Hotel, Connaught Place.

This would be followed by visits to the British Council, the American Centre Library and the NDMC Library in that order. Lunch of chole chawal or rajma chawal at one of the roadside eateries in Connaught Place would be followed by a leisurely stroll around the various blocks of the Inner Circle of Connaught Place, browsing at the various pavement bookstalls, bookshops and checking out the latest cassettes at Bluebird Music in Regal Building (now sadly only a fond memory).
A stranger’s tale in Connaught place
One such Saturday I had followed my usual routine and visited all the libraries. Carrying a load of library books and having had a heavy lunch of kadhi chawal, I made my way along the gallery by the side of Regal Building. I intended to have a look at the paperbacks spread on the floor by two vendors who displayed their wares at the end of the corridor just in front of ‘Bluebird’ Music shop.
I passed a tall lanky beanpole of a man, dressed in a grubby white dhoti kurta and sporting a white turban, the unofficial uniform of most people from the villages that dotted the outskirts of Delhi and neighbouring Haryana. He had a thin ascetic looking face half covered by a ragged white beard and moustache, beetling eyebrows, an aquiline nose like an eagle’s beak and a very prominent Adam’s apple.
He gave me a swift sideways look from under those bushy brows, suddenly did an about turn just as he passed me and called out in a deep baritone. ‘Babuji’ he said with a hangdog expression on his face ‘ Aap ek buddhe ki thodi madad karoge ?’ ( ‘would you please help an old man ?’). From his accent I could make out he was a Haryanvi and from his apparel it was apparent he was a farmer, a member of that doughty tribe who are the backbone of our nation. I stopped with enquiring look on my face.
The lips behind the shrubbery moved again and I watched the adam’s apple with fascination as it did a little jig while he rapidly poured out his tale of woe. The crux of his tale was that he was from Rohtak in Haryana and had come to Delhi with the princely sum of Rs.1500/- to pay the monthly premium on a loan he had taken from a Bank in Connaught Place.
His pocket had been picked while he was travelling by bus to Connaught Place and now, he was left penniless, without even the sum necessary to travel back to Rohtak. He pulled up his Kurta and thrust his hand into its pocket to demonstrate how the vile pickpocket had pilfered his wallet. There was a slash across his kurta running across the pocket and his fingers were poking through the slit and waggling like an upended spider as he emphasized his point. He was seeking a handout of Rs. 50/- so that he could grab a bite to eat and
I’m usually a soft touch. ‘Just Another Sucker’ in the words of James Hadley Chase, a willing victim of every hard luck story that came my way. I had around Rs. 60 in my pocket, and my bus fare back to my flat was around Rs. 7/-. I could spare the Rs. 50/- he needed. My hand strayed to my pocket. The old man’s eyes took on a predatory gleam and the adam’s apple bobbed up and down in anticipation. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my usually trusting brain an alarm bell rang. Something was rotten in the State of Denmark as Hamlet would have said. I made up my mind, pulled my hand out of my pocket, muttered a curt negative to the man and headed off down the corridor like Carl Lewis with a bus to catch.
The old man made a despairing grab at my shoulder but I evaded him and took off. A couple of despairing ‘Babujis’ followed me but I steadfastly kept going. I almost passed the secondhand book seller who had spread his wares at the end of the corridor when a bunch of lurid paperback covers caught my eye. I stopped short and snuck a look around. The old man had given up and was walking away from me, eyes casting around for another victim. I heaved a sigh of relief and took another look at the books.
My heart started racing. There were four books by Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A.A.Fair, five Dell paperbacks by Brett Halliday featuring his series detective Mike Shayne and a Pan Agatha Christie paperback. I almost drooled then swallowed and put a disinterested look on my face. How much were these books for I asked in a casual voice. Seven rupees each said the seller, a middle-aged man I knew quite well as I was a frequent customer. I paused. I didn’t have seventy rupees with me and I wanted all of those books. I took a chance and told him in an offhand tone that I’d pay him 50/- rupees for the bunch, take it or leave it.

The man pondered for what seemed like an eternity before suddenly acquiescing. Scarcely believing my luck I grabbed my booty, crammed it willy nilly into my already groaning bag and half ran to the Shivaji Stadium Bus Terminal. I kept thinking that the man would have a change of heart and come after me, demanding I return the books, but it didn’t happen and I was soon on a White Line bus headed for home.
When instinct speaks louder than sympathy
All the way home I was tortured by misgivings. Maybe the old man was telling the truth, and I had been cruel in turning down his plea for help. The poor guy may even now be wandering around like a lost billy goat, bleating through his beard and being turned down by stone hearted ingrates. I was still ill at ease when I reached home. My cellmates were sitting in a circle on the floor around the teapot enjoying cups of black tea (we did not believe in luxuries like milk, rather our pockets did not). I sat down and accepted the proffered cup of lukewarm black tea.
Seeing my troubled face one of my roommates asked me why I was looking like a squirrel that had lost its nuts (literal translation of what he said in Malayalam). I poured out my tale and lamented that I felt I had been cruel in turning down the poor man. I’m not sure how I expected them to react. I thought one or two may cast reproachful looks my way, disappointed with my turning down a plea for help.
Maybe one of them would even commiserate with me and reassure me by saying that the man probably got a loan from someone else and was even now stretching out on his charpoy at home, replete with food and hot tea, the disappointments of the day even now fading from his memory. What I did not expect was the pin drop silence that followed my tale. I looked up and saw that each one was sitting with face downcast, occasionally stealing a sideways look at each other.
This wasn’t the reaction I expected. I looked at them with quizzically. Finally, one of them told me in halting tones that all of them had paid a visit to Connaught Place the previous Saturday where they had come across a lanky old man with a similar tale of woe, identical in every respect right down to the fingers being stuck out of the torn pocket and waggled around. Being sensitive, compassionate young men as well as complete chumps, they had gathered as much as they could spare and handed it over.
To say I was relieved would be an understatement. I laughed at my friends like a tickled hyaena, rolling on the floor and almost upsetting the teapot. My instincts were right. I had not proved to be a patsy like some I could name and to top it all I had acquired a bunch of vintage books that I would have missed had I handed over my money to that cadaverous con man. There was only one word to describe the situation. Serendipitous.