Nimz revealed

Every day is a lesson to life. Every moment. For me,yesterday was such a day. A day which made me think beyond the reach with my tiring brain. The day I left home after some wonderful days of happiness & togetherness.

Yesterday was a hectic day. I will never tag it as a bad day, but a day with some not-so-good moments. It was the end of my Onam holidays & today I had to get back to work. My usual schedule. I descended the bus with a half dead mind. I had a worse (still manageable) bus journey (will narrate it later.. 🙂 ). While walking through the narrow road to my hostel,my mobile warned with a battery critically low notification. And yet again I forgot to take my power bank from home. I was running out of money in pocket but wasn’t able to take a step towards the ATM. That’s why I chose to reach the hostel as soon as possible and give a rest to my back bone.
(The hostel was closed for Onam holidays last Thursday on wards. Notified before that it will re-open by Sunday evening only. I already made a call to the warden and informed her that I will be reaching by Sunday evening.)

But yesterday, the re-opening Sunday evening welcomed me with a locked gate and two of my in-mates whom I barely know waiting in front of that. My phone called the evening Azaan making me realize 6.30 pm ticked in my watch. I smiled at the two ladies. They looked worn out, tired than me. They both were over phone trying to get the Warden. But she wasn’t picking up the call. We settled our mind believing that she may be in bus on the way back here. I put down my back-pack and tried to relax myself. I tied up my messy hair, removed my scarf and started walking slowly through the street. The other two were on some other phone calls. The sun started to say good bye to the day and my watch ticked 7.00 pm. All the shops nearby was closed and I was in need of water. One of the two lend me the half bottle of water. I drank it like elixir realizing that’s the only water left for the rest of night. Meanwhile an Old lady from the neighborhood came to us and made a small enquiry on our waiting process. We kept on trying over Warden’s number & no one responded from the other end. After 7.15 pm we got her on call. She was waiting for the chief to come and hand over the key of our hostel. We have another one hour to spend in the darkness.

Typical Cochin night is ready for me. The halogen street light,singing mosquitoes, wandering cats.. Eyes peeped out through the windows and porches of the nearby houses. People were looking at us like we are alien from some other planet. A cat was finding its place near my back-pack. I grabbed my luggage and shifted to the gate. My legs started fainting and that made me sit in the side of street, in front of the gate. For my wonder the other two also settled near me. I was mute, hesitant to start a conversation. I had a smile-smile relationship with them till then. Gradually the silence between us is broken. The one lady with me is about 25+ in age. She is a field reported/ journalist in a leading Malayalam news channel.
Kerala is a place where, everyday a political party & a news channel is born. People make profit by selling common people’s common sense. One who can make drama to reality & other who makes every reality to drama. 
In her words, working in a news channel seems to be a tiring job profile . She was from Kannur, a northern district of Kerala. She had a six and half hours journey from home and her eyes were in need of some sleep. We both turned to the other lady. She is reaching her 50s. She came there for a one night stay. She vacated the hostel last month. Now she flew down from Banglore for a funeral. She reached the aerodrome by 4.30 pm and the city traffic spared another one and half hours to move 23 kilometers. She have to take another 70 kilometers journey to reach the destination. Because of the security Kerala offers for a lone woman at night, she was insisted to stay back at night and start the journey early morning for the 10.30 am funeral.

By 8’o clock we were running out of water. The humidity & mosquitoes made our wait more worse. Warden kept on saying she is on the way & no trace of human in the street made us get up ourselves and walk in search of any open shops. The eyes were still watching us from the neighborhood. We loaded our back-pack and headed towards the highway. The same Old lady who came for enquiry before,appeared and again questioned about our movement. We explained our water scarcity and search of a shop. She didn’t reply and stood there till we turned a block. We found an open shop in the highway & loaded our bag with mineral water. On the walk back random topics entered our conversation. The walls between us is already broken. We started caring each other, sheltering each other. In a world where no one lends a hand, where selling a bottle of water is a need, where people live in streets; we found our security ourselves. 🙂

By 9′ o clock, still sitting in the street side, a Black Honda City halted in front of us. A middle-aged lady got out of the car and came to us. After hearing us she offered her home for us to relax. It was at the end of the block. As they were leaving to somewhere else we hesitated to take the kind offer and thanked her. Meanwhile,her husband called our Warden & checked out where she is. After making sure that she will reach soon they left in that car with a sticker showing Advocate. Good people do exists. After some time the hostel authorities came & unlocked the gate. Without any word I grabbed my keys & headed to my room. While mounting the stair, I turned back and thanked to the two other ladies. I bid adieu to them.

I bid adieu to that three hours under street light that changed my perspective over the whole world. Is there anything wrong in giving a place to sit for three ladies? My brave heart who used to travel alone took two steps aback yesterday. Don’t expect a helping hand always. World around is changing day by day.
A bath & food brought from home; call to my brother & a little chat with my writer friend; lot many weird thoughts on my day till then & my head ache offered me a nice sleep yesterday.. 🙂