The watchman rang our
apartment doorbell. There was a man outside who claimed to have been run over by
our car.
We rushed down to see
a familiar figure sitting on the ground outside our apartment block. His right
leg was stretched out and crudely bandaged. We recognized him instantly. He was
the hawker who used to stand outside our school gates daily, selling aampapad
to the children. We kids had bought the stuff from him often.
He pointed to my
eldest sister and said she’d run over his leg a few days earlier. He was now
demanding compensation.
My sister had recently
turned eighteen and had just received her driving license. However, knowing the
poor quality of driving schools in India and the ease with which licenses were
obtained, appa had hired a lady instructor to continue training her until
she could drive with confidence. The instructor came on alternate days, and it
was on one of her days that this incident had supposedly occurred, or so the
aampapadwala claimed.
He described the
location: the sharp turn off Gamadia Road that snaked down Carmichael Road to
meet Pedder Road near Activity School. He said he had been seated beneath the
tree on the right-hand side of the road, with his right leg slightly protruding
onto the road. According to him, my sister came hurtling down the slope when the
signal turned red. She overshot the turn and hastily reversed the car. But the
reversal was haphazard. Instead of staying on the left, the car veered right and
ran over his leg. He claimed to have screamed in pain, but no one heard him.
When the signal turned green, she sped away.
It took him a day to
understand the scope of his injury. He realized he couldn’t walk. Remembering my
sister as an ex-student from the school, he managed to trace her to our home.
Appa
turned to question my sister, who accepted everything the man said—except that
she hadn’t heard him scream and couldn’t recollect seeing him at the turn. The
only way to resolve this was to hear the instructor’s version, so we waited.
When she arrived, she
threw a completely different spin on the incident. She confidently rubbished the
man’s claims, stating that as an instructor, she kept her eyes peeled for
pedestrians. She insisted there had been nobody under the tree that day.
By now, a crowd had
gathered. On hearing the instructor’s assertion, they quickly concluded the man
was trying to con us. He was faking the injury or trying to pass off an
unrelated one as caused by our car. The aampapadwala, who looked to be on
the wrong side of fifty, weakly tried to defend himself, but the crowd’s
collective cynicism was too much. In defeat, he picked up his rudimentary crutch
and hobbled away.
But he was back the
next day. And the day after. He would lie outside our house holding his head in
his hands, complaining to anyone who’d listen. The instructor would confront him
sharply, and we were told to ignore him.
We were confused. On
one hand, the man’s piteous words moved us. On the other, the instructor’s logic
reminded us we could be playing into a ploy.
Then, suddenly, he
stopped coming. Initially, we were relieved. But as a week passed, we began to
worry. Every time we entered our apartment, we looked for him. People said he
had realized there was no money to be made and returned to his wastrel ways.
But a nameless dread
took hold of our family. What if… he was telling the truth?
That week was tough.
Nobody spoke. The usual laughter had left the house. We looked at each other
with dark, haunted eyes. It was too much for appa.
One day, without
telling us, he set out to search for the aampapadwala. The man who had
spent close to two decades selling sweets to schoolchildren had vanished. Nobody
seemed to know where he lived. But appa was determined. He asked around
and found someone who knew someone who knew him. After driving all over the city
and following obscure leads, he traced him to a hovel in a slum, where the man
lay burning with fever.
Without hesitation,
appa lifted him, carried him to the car—the very car he claimed had injured
him—and drove him to a large private hospital.
When filling out the
admission form, he was asked for the man’s name. We had always referred to him
as the aampapadwala, and appa had no idea what his real name was.
Taking a cue from Tagore’s Kabuliwala, my father, in an inspired moment, told
the nurse his name was Hanif Mohamed.
The sick man opened
his eyes and beckoned to appa. When appa bent down, he whispered,
“My name is Atmaram Khandilkar, not Hanif Mohamed.”
His leg was badly
fractured, and he had developed a high fever. For two weeks, he was kept under
care. Appa would visit occasionally. Atmaram would be happy to see him
and often report that he was being treated like a VIP and that the food was
excellent.
He walked out a
fortnight later, on a pair of shiny new crutches and with a cast on his injured
leg. He returned to our house a few weeks later, a different man. His leg had
healed; he was smiling as he offered us his aampapad. Appa offered
him money, but he refused it, stating all he had wanted was treatment. He burst
into tears and thanked my father profusely. Appa, in turn, thanked him.
As I was still in
school, I continued to see Atmaram often after that. He would smile at me and
insist I take aampapad for free. He would tell everyone around how kind
my family was, especially appa. I would squirm and try to avoid taking
anything for free from him.
The incident had its
consequences. My sister stopped driving altogether. My younger sister was no
longer keen to learn. And we, as a family, learned to respect the poor.
We had been humbled.
Atmaram had taught us that dignity and courage are not the preserve of the
wealthy. By forgiving us, he had shown he was far wealthier than we could ever
claim to be. Most importantly, in standing his ground with quiet grace, he saved
us from committing a grave sin.