Price of Life..

He patiently waited for few minutes before sands settled down at the bottom and water appeared *clean*. He couldn’t risk the presence of *sand*. He had to act with surgical precision, any impatient movement of hand will disturb the sand for which he waited almost 5minutes. He picked up the filling dull textured steel mug with his right arm, and with careful and calculated movement of his wrist he filled the mug with water and poured it into an old capless 20litres *Bisleri* bottle which he carried on his rickshaw with other gallons. Before he could fill another mug of water, a kid dropped his small wooden stick with which he was playing , the *fall* disturbed the sand which had settled in peace to let a rickshaw puller fill his *bisleri* bottle with flowing water. The man, for a moment ran out of patience. The kid, who appeared to be his son, was then subjected to few classic abusive words; I wonder if his mother had any role in that situation. Young kid with no University degree in psychology understood that his presence was disturbing his father from completing the task that he was undertaking. He simply walked few steps, and tried to enjoy the traffic, luxurious cars which he could only see, and at times could touch the shining metal at the risk of being scolded away. The father was lost in his own world while waiting for the sand storm in flowing water to calm down before he could fill his gallons with water.

This man, a Bengali migrant from the town of Malda was filling his canisters with water for drinking purposes. I spoke to him in broken Bengali that I have learned to break ice with Bengali speaking people. . He came to Noida, around three years ago when he learnt from his fellow village men that pulling a rickshaw is a good business in Delhi/NCR and he can easily make up to Rs 200 everyday. Tracing the footprints of his village men he too came to Noida to pull rickshaw and make money. Today he has no regrets of making this journey comparable to pilgrimage from Malda town to Noida, after all he is earning more than double the money he earned in his hometown.

Every time that I travel in my air-conditioned car from Noida to Lajpat Nagar to attend classes, it costs me Rs 200 for fuel and DND toll charges are Rs 44(stupid guys have increased the tax by just Rs 2, which comes with high cost of waiting and wastage of fuel, maybe in some other Note) for round trip that’s all most Rs250 for a day; excluding other expenses. While my expenses are met, which I would like to put as: “while my destiny is being written with my father’s money , that man writes his and his family’s everyday destiny by pulling rickshaw under the excited and hot sun to make less that what I just burn everyday for my comfort.”

Today I bought a bottle of Kinley’s supposedly mineral water for Twelve Rupees while driving back from university, as I was thirsty, and couldn’t *afford* to risk getting infected by drinking outside water. Every time that I sipped water from the new seducing curvaceous bottle of kenley, I could see that man waiting patiently for the sand to settle down.

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A Non-political dilemma of election, which requires no debate as i am clear in my head.

Noida is not very far from the Parliament of India, the seat of power in India, Bihar is still dozen of thousands of kilometres far from the Parliament. I wonder, which one is a greater threat to my country : A person sporting beards with a skull cap, educated in madarsa who can fire AK 47s and allegedly kills few hundred people every year in India or the millions of infectious germs that kills thousands of Indian every year because of water borne diseases. Or maybe i am comparing the Judas with Peter. Who should i vote for? An old bald man who claims to be a strong leader who can take tough decisions and fight terrorism but has a shady past record OR an old man who happens to be one of the most intellectual and economically aware person who has taken India from near bankruptcy of early 1990s to India which is still going strong in time of global economical recession, and promises overall development.

I looked for my election voter ID card in my bag of important documents which i got it made as soon as i turned 18, five years ago. I can see my smiling face on it.

I will Vote, will you?