I am in a cab, and in the late evening; driving to a prearranged lodging reserved at a star hotel, meandering way through the maze and labyrinth of traffic. Bangalore is bursting at its seams. The smoke, noise and bedlam, nauseate. The city, once a paradise of greenery and beauty has been ravaged beyond recognition – gone are the tree-lined avenues, replaced by ugly monstrous hoardings and neon lights. The car honks and inches forwards, halting interminably long at traffic lights –  the driver a young man of around thirty – gets talking, and as most barbers or drivers are wont to be, is garrulous. It is hours since I left the airport, and I’m still less than past the halfway mark – at this rate, I whine loud, it will be midnight by the time I wind up what has been a hectic and hurried day: an urgent mission, fixed at an hour’s notice sees me here, cussing under my breath, caught up in the road snarl.

Something snaps in me, road rage makes one to take strange decisions.

Where do you live?

About two kilometers from here

Well, if its all right with you, drive me to your place

The driver jolts his car to a stop, his maneuver immediately greeted by a cacophony of synchronized horns from behind us.

I look at his eyes, as he turns to me. Open, and staring, dazed at my suggestion.

In twenty minutes I am at a small asbestos roofed hovel: one among a row of low tenements tucked into a wooded corner of God knows where.

A tiny room, littered with bundles of possessions, all tied up in cloth lie here and there. A tinier kitchen and a bathroom abut the space, each with a low wall. I squat on the single bed-sheet and unpack, getting into my house wear, when the creaky door opens and in walks his wife – twenty something, and very pregnant. She bends low as her driver husband says, this doctor will stay here tonight. She pulls him aside and mumbles something

No, I will get something for us from outside, he says, showing her some money I have given him to get us food.

He leaves and I get talking to the girl, she is due in two months she says coyly, her first baby. They are struggling to cope, I can see that, all around me tell tale signs of poverty and want. A furtive mouse scurries across the room. In an hour we are eating, sitting on the dusty floor with newspapers spread as mat and table cloth. He ferrets out a small bottle of Nescafe and a milk sachet – for your morning coffee, he adds, placing them on a single stool that functions as table.

It is five thirty, and dawn breaks through – I can hear the woman cranking her kerosene stove, as she pumps pressure to coax a flame. I sip delicious brew, with a copy of Deccan Herald newspaper that has thoughtfully been arranged for me. The toilet, is just a space with a stained commode, a pitcher of dank water – no taps here. By seven I am all changed, tie, pristine white shirt, coat, and shoes. I press a five hundred note into the girl’s clammy anemic hand - Here, it is for the junior, I tell her as she closes her small malnourished fist refusing the token – till her husband nods, and she gingerly accepts the currency and stoops low, her huge belly inconveniencing her attempt to touch my feet. I raise her and press her close: Eat well sister, I tell her as I step out of the tenement, a gaggle of curious onlookers, all from the slum neighborhood staring at me as I, suited and booted, get into the parked cab.

Within the hour, I am at the venue of my meeting with a foreign delegation that I have to interact with regarding medical educational opportunities in my academy. A ritzy five star affair, grand foyer, tastefully decorated, brass pots, leafy floral arrangements, natty stewards and hostesses. The meeting goes off fine, and I have delivered my brief well. The Royal Orchid luncheon is a feast, the menu is staggering. Laughter, cheer, bonhomie, back-slapping – typical hi-brow stuff. Something nags me, the food is insipid, or is it my appetite? I don’t know. All this appears criminal to me, when hardly a few hours ago, I was part of a system that this world doesn’t even know exits (or doesn’t want to know, maybe). I was witness to hunger, malnutrition, desperation and despair, I was party with a couple that stood at the edge of sanity trying to survive in this mad corporate world. I shake hands, and leave. Back to my cab.

Drive me to Mangalore

What? Mangalore??

Yes, Mangalore.

It takes us twelve hours of harrowing time to reach home. My dogs leap and bound with joy: Lakshmi is ready with supper. Ravi has waited too, and we, all four, driver included, eat together. Early next morning I bid farewell to the driver who slept in my spare room. In his car's boot are packed five blankets, pillows, plastic mugs and buckets, kitchen cutlery – and any number of bits and pieces which Lakshmi and Ravi have collected overnight as redundant for our domestic needs.

The driver stares disbelievingly as Lakshmi also passes him a bottle of tonic iron and some vials of B complex for his wife. I have extra, she says, my doctor gave me enough for two babies and I am producing only one, she giggles pointing to her own protuberant belly.

Keep in touch, says Ravi, fishing out an old mobile cell phone – use this – just get a Sim card and a number.

We stand, watch and wave bye to a misty-eyed taxi driver pull away from us. What else could we have given him? Money, I did – but anything else more permanent and memorable? I don’t know. For an indigent family to have opened its zinc sheet door and heart to me in a city that has lost its soul, nothing I can think of, is valuable enough. All told, apart from the five hundred I gave the driver's wife in Bangalore, my indulgence has been worth around six thousand, excluding the car fare. Thus ends my last week, Sunday – eventfully.

Its Monday morning now, as I switch on to my internet.

I have been off my computer and sulekha for a week or more. No time or state of mind. Too much on my mind and hands, work wise. I log onto my email – a note from team Sulekha – now, whats this? A cheque for ten thousand is on its way ‘your blog has been selected for blogprint’, the mail informs.

I read the mail out loud once again. Somewhere, sometime, I must have done something good to be treated so benignly and benevolently by life and people I come across. On my table is a small handwritten piece of paper, scribed and signed by a trembling hand. 

‘ricived total 5, 500 /-  INDICA taxi no. KA 05 C 5740 dated 6 Jan 08’