The Other Side of the Story

On 10th September 2010, we had to catch the train from Bangalore to Calcutta. It was raining heavily. I booked a taxi. But the taxi driver did not behave well from the time I met him. I got really pissed off. In multiple occasions he proved to be arrogant and stubborn during the 25 km journey. I was sure I would complain against him to the taxi company.
While off-loading the luggage, I asked him, "Why do you seem so irritated today? I am not pleased with your behaviour."
"I am sorry", his voice toned down for the first time as he counted the four 100 rupee notes that I gave him, "My two-year old son is admitted to hospital and I am still at work as I need money for that. I am tensed and worried."

During the entire journey, I was looking at the incidents (that is, the rude behavior of the taxi driver) through my glasses. Now I have got to know the other side of the story. Obviously, the result is not the same. Sometimes I wonder how my reactions and attitudes to persons will change if I always had the luxury of looking at the different events from multiple angles.


My cook does a fairly decent job, a rounded fellow in mid-fifties with a very polite and measured behaviour. When I asked him how he landed in Bangalore as a cook, he narrated me a story that drew sympathy from me. To cut the long story short, he was a taxi driver in Calcutta, until one night he ran over a drunkard, an accident for which he had little fault. However, since then his life changed with his driving license being seized, police behind him and his nightmare of landing behind the bars chasing him. At that time he had two kids. He had a real troubled time seeing them through the tough mental and financial conditions. I felt really sorry for him. I thought that we sometimes crib and complain for so small things, but here is one person who has and perhaps will for the rest of his life live with the nightmare of finding himself on the wrong side of the bar.

Now lets take a different perspective of the incident. What if the widow of the deceased had worked in our home and complained how a taxi driver ran over his "occasional drunkard" husband and how that ruined the dreams of her and her then one-year old daughter? What would my reactions be?


Examples are not difficult to site. The other day the cleaner of my car was limping. On inquiring he said that two motorists collided at full speed and one came and hit him, while he was standing for the bus. In the event, however, both the motorists died. Two days later he came and informed me that the persons who died were identified. In fact, one of them was known to him - he was his room-mate when he first came to Bangalore about eight years ago.


In Chandannagore, my ancestors have been living for a couple of hundreds of years. So, by default, my grandfather and all had a good say in the society and everyone respected them. They passed on their regard when they passed our house etc. And that gave me this strange notion that so many people’s lives revolved around ours. But now I have learnt that each person has a life of his own – a unique story to tell. Now, when in news I find 10 people died, I know that is may be a column in the newspaper, but so many people’s life and dreams have changed its course and the loss is not at all limited to 10 or 20 members, but much beyond than we can possibly imagine. How do they interpret and view the incidents? What is their version? What is their story?

Every person has a story to tell. Every person involved in any event or incident will have their own versions of it. The drunkard who lay unconscious on the roadside, the child labour who works in the near-by tea stall, the one-legged beggar at the traffic signal, the old lady who sweeps the road in front of our house, the shopkeeper and the vegetable seller, the motor-mechanic, the cab driver – everybody has a very different and unique story to share from worlds of their own. To us, he is just a drunkard. Some, perhaps, will even call him an evil influence on the society. But what does he think of himself? Where does he come from? Perhaps, he was also a very normal person not too long ago. Perhaps his girl friend left him or he lost everything in some mishaps. Or maybe he was always like that since childhood as he was an orphan, losing his parents in some unfortunate events. Or maybe, he is not a drunkard – someone has drugged him for some motives.


We will never know the answers until we try exploring people and reach out for “the other side of the story”. And once we start exploring those stories, we could easily find some of the most interesting reads of our life, far more interesting than the most gripping novels that any writer has ever penned.

The walk

The walk is never an easy one,
It was never meant to be easy.
Sometimes you walk under the scorching sun;
And at times there is torrential rain.
Or may be its the spring time,
With colourful flowers all around you!
Sometimes there are companions -
You get a hand to hold,
You get a shoulder to cry upon.
But most of the times the walk is a lonely walk -
When you fall there is none to lift you.

Sometimes you walk through the dense forests,
And at times you walk through the endless deserts,
Where mirages constantly try to distract you.
Sometimes you take rest under the shadows of some leafy trees,
And soon you brush aside the dust and start walking
From dawn to dusk and even beyond.
You stop by the stealthy river and sleepy town.
You halt where the children play.
For once you think that you were also a child in some bygone days,
And you think of those childhood days.
The very next moment, you are brought to today's reality.
You know you have to keep walking...

Until, one day,suddenly, you come to know that there is no more walking.
However big or small you are, time will stand still for you.
You have reached your destination.
All the walking and running that you had been doing over the years,
And all the talking and fighting that you were engaged in so long,
Have,once and for all, come to an end.
Its all over.
The red ball of fire has set.
It is time for the calm and serene moonlight
To pierce through the darkness
That was around you, that is inside you.
It is time for the Almighty Touch to enlighten your soul!