Sad story

I left the chemist shop having bought my medicine. As I was looking for a taxi to go room, I noticed an old man crouched under an electric pole outside the shop.

It was dusk time so he was not clearly visible. He was clutching an old bag containing rags, probably his only belongings. His streched-out arm showed some coins in his palm. Obviously, he was seeking alms!

Initially, I thought the season's cold had driven him into the corner. Or, maybe he was hiding from the police. Then I thought that the man was probably sick and had tried to persuade the chemist to give him some medicine free of cost. So, the exasperated poor man lodged himself in the corner.

I observed him for a few minutes and concluded that in any case he needed help. I dug my hand into my pocket and decided to hand over to him whatever currency note came into my hand. It turned out to be a Rs 50 note. I hesitated for a moment and placed it in his palm.

The man looked at the note and then at me bewilderment. Normally, people throw coins towards him but here he saw a currency note. "God bless you. You're an angel" he mumbled in English pointing to the note. This time he surprised me with his accent. On my request, he followed me to a secluded but well lit place on a side street.

I asked him his name. He replied "pls don't ask me that. It embrasses m. You may call me Mr X." He wouldn't give me his address either. The man also refused to identify members of his family. For several moments, he looked into my eyes intently as if he was suspecting my bonafides and wanted to be sure that he was talking to a genuine well wisher.

He command of the English language and his diction did not gel with his tattered clothes. The man who looked like a "begger" which he was not, stumped me and raised my quisitiveness.

A few pressing questions brought out the agonizing facts of his life. He turned out to be one of the many elderly persons who had enjoyed a fairly good life growing up but had to go through all kinds of suffering in their older years!

Mr X, too, had a reasonably good upbringing and schooling. He went to convent school, then to university and got a senior position in a semi govt organization.

He was earning a handsome salary but led a simple life himself to save substantially for his children- two sons and a daughter. Mr X immensely loved his daughter on whose marriage he spent lavishly and gave costly gifts. The sons were given the best possible education that earned them lucrative jobs in the private sector as well as attractive marriage proposals that fructified.

Mr X used a bank loan to finance a big two-section house in a prime locality that he said he would bequeath to his sons.
He wanted the joint family to stay in their old house for sentimental reasons. But the sons and their wives rose in revolt against family head's wishes.

They were in a great hurry to multiply the wealth they would have otherwise inherited after the old man's death.

The man who remained ill-fed and ill-clad to save for his children was now getting targeted. He became and irritant in his own home in which the old man was losing control.

Family tensions weighed heavily on the health of Mr X's wife, a no-non-sense lady. Her sons and daughters-in-law did not find spending money on her failing health worthwhile. She died of shock and ill treatment, leaving her husband to bear the burnt alone.

One day, Mr X was made to vacate his bedroom and stay in the maid's room. But at night he choose to move out of his house for good and stay in street corners where I had found him begging.

As he narrated this, he sobbed and saluted in the air. I looked at him in surprise. He mumbled "while leaving my place I had salute my house and said goodbye to it. I will do it till my death, wherever I am and whenever I am reminded of it!!"