MUMBAI PHOOL WALI

I have always enjoyed chatting with people. Be it a waiter in a restaurant, taxi driver in a hired car, caterer in a marriage hall, fellow traveler in a train. Everyone has got a tale to be told if ypu are willing to listen. I do not enjoy air travels, because most of the fellow passengers are stern faced and do not even smile in return even if you attempt to smile.

I was in Mumbai recently with my sister for a few days. Mumbai with its fast forward life, people jostling against each other to get into and get out of the electric trains, known as the central nervous system always intrigued me. I never felt comfortable though living in one of the posh center of Mumbai. I have always found the ways of life in Mumbai enigmatic and often found myself lost completely. In this desert, I found this Phool Wali who used to visit the place I was staying every day. I was introduced to her by sister as only sister from Madagascar. 

She was dressed in typical Pune cotton saree, a big bindi was there on her fore head. The spectacles on her declared that she must have crossed forty. The point which stuck me like a thunder was her smile. The teeth were even without a stain of beetle juice or tobacco. Despite climbing steps after steps to deliver flowers she was not found to be tired even though it was close to 10 PM. 

I asked her place of residence. She told me it was chawl in Borivilli. I was told by my sister that every day by this time this lady delivered the flowers for the next day’s Pooja. Come rain or shine, she was there promptly at that time. I started looking forward to her visit every day night as she started talking to me slowly inquiring about myself, my family, job etc. 

Within a few days I could learn that this lady was from Ratnagiri district migrated to Mumbai in 

60 s as a small toddler. She got married when she turned sixteen to a driver from her own village. Her husband spends all days and nights in the taxi and comes home once a week. This arrangement was just to earn little extra to meet both ends in these tough times. She has got a son and daughter “Government Quota” as per her. 

I was very much intrigued by her ever smiling nature. Despite living posh flats in major metros, good bank balance, settled children, caring husband, good social life we all grumble, crib about difficult times, unsecured life etc. Here is a simple flower seller who gets up three AM every day spends most of her time in crowded trains transporting flower….buying early in the morning, transporting and at the same time making garlands, stands of Khajra etc. 

Then distributes the same climbing steps after step in every single block and then even at 10 PM able to smile and return home to get easy and comfortable with her children. Neither she nor her children are insecure, as all of them are raised independent to face the socio- economic upheavals’. 

The parting day came. She gave me a small stand of Jasmine as gift. She told me to She told me to keep visiting my sister as that is the only way to keep up the relationship alive. I really felt as if I was moving away from a very old friend.

Well, here is one lady like the flower she sells keeps spreading the fragrance wherever she goes without any fear or inhibition with a brightly lit face like the rose in the rose bunch. After all, in the end it is not the bank balance or materialistic wealth one has matters, it is the number of lives one touched matters the most!