Back With a Thud

I am usually given to a healthy trot rather than a lazy traipse on any normal day. People who know me know of this and take rightful precautions – make way in narrow passageways, hiss at me when I start moving in the same direction as them or point a mean finger at me and follow it up with a colorful expletive. One pregnant colleague-friend even advanced her maternity leave by a week to prevent any premature drops.

The few times I have quizzed myself about this, the knowledgeable me has silenced the ignorant me saying that this is a personality trait, something which adds a tint of interest to an otherwise mono-colored personality (I am wheat-ish fair all over, spotted, though not unduly, with a few dark colored birth marks). So it was that, as I made a quick entrance to the office rest room in the morning, with a song on my lips as it were, I pushed open the door with more force than justifiable for the act. Little did I know perched behind the door was the gentleman who keeps the said place sparkling clean and odor-free. It’s not an exaggeration if I said I heard a thud behind the door and so I say it – I heard a thud behind the door. I had hit the poor man’s behind with a force that crossed the boundaries of a friendly pat on the derrière by a mile.

People who know me know well that I am not one to stave off sorry’s and really-did-not-knows at the slightest provocation. So I went ahead with the usual ritual made special by the use of a language largely unknown to me. There were bits of bhaiyya, laga kya?, dard hain kya?, malum nahi tha…in my minute long speech.

While my mental energies were channeled to support my linguistic challenges, I did still notice that the chap whose tail bone I had almost broken was smiling through it all. Before you go giggling and curling on the floor, let me assure you he was not in anyway amused by my language. He was indeed in pain. The thud was as real as any thud I have heard. He was smiling because he knew it was an honest mistake on my part. He was smiling because maybe he thought his social standing required him to do so. He was smiling because I was saab whereas he was I-still-don’t-know-his-name.

Whatever it was, his humility touched me in a way that nothing had in the last few months I have been staying in Mumbai. And I did what any other suave, socially-responsible, warm-hearted person would do in such a situation. I proclaimed the way I felt on twitter. Not many of my friends follow me there so I also wrote a blog post on it.