Just another statistic

Ram didn’t remember too much about his village back in Maharashtra except for the face of his mother at sleep, the day that he’d decided to escape. The sparsely occupied room had stood mute while he packed a small rucksack of his torn shorts and shirts, two of them. As the sun rose, Ram was sitting atop a generous bullock cart which would take him to the nearest bus station 50 km away.

12 years passed, during which he had never written to his mother, he had never learnt how to. His only link back home was two hundred rupees that he sent her every month, without fail. The money might bring a smile to her face and tell her that all was well with her son.

A Sunday evening when he had finished delivering all the courier letters, Ram stood next to the sea. He loved doing this, as among the thousands of people who thronged there Sunday evening, he was anonymous. He was not the son of the farmer who lost hope and committed suicide; he was not the brother of two sisters who had been married off to rich old men, just to feed the family. He also was not the son of a mother who thought he would not be like his father. He would not run away, she had always said. But he had, and that thought hurt Ram. The two hundred rupees that he sent her was as much in seeking forgiveness as in quelling his own sense of guilt. Would mother have understood why he left home?

His thoughts were interrupted by screams of a group of kids as they tried to push each other into the oncoming waves. They were happy, without burden. Their joy was infectious, Ram smiled. He felt light and optimistic, the gentle warmth of the setting sun only added to his positive feeling. He was surprised at how easily his being had gone from being woebegone to feeling energized. He felt like having a chaat, a rare treat that he gave himself a couple of times a year.

The chaat stalls were full of families spending the Sunday binge-ing on street food that Mumbai was so famous for. There were young couples too, college students, who were sharing the same plate and probably the same dreams. He double checked his breast pocket for the two hundred rupees that he had to send back home the next day, they were there, safe. Five minutes later Ram had his first morsel of chaat, celebrating Sunday evening on his own. Suddenly, a sharp blast threw him two hundred metres away. A feeling of emptiness was the last sense that Ram felt.

The next morning, Times of India carried a picture of a mangled body; Ram was now the symbol of a terrorist attack, to be played over and over again on news channels and newspapers.

A week later, back in his village, Ram’s mother wondered why the two hundred rupees had not come this time.

Post script: There are many like Ram who become mere statistics in blasts and mishaps. What saddens me the most is the thought that they continue to live for some people who are oblivious to what's happened to their dear one back in the city