The Prayer of a Blind Old Man

It had been a long day and my wife and I were off for dinner. We were both hungry and looking forward to some food. As we headed off towards some restaurant in the M G Road of Bangalore, we head a tap tap on the deserted road. It was the sound of a white cane tapping the road and an elderly Muslim man dressed in a shirt and lungi and a graying beard was coming down the road muttering to himself. As he came closer, we could see that he was blind and the cane was the one that the blind typically carry. Shivaji Nagar bus stands; can any one tell m where the Shivaji Nagar Bus stand is? I looked around – we seemed to be the only people in the vicinity and the old man was walking unsteadily down a road which seemed to have more traffic then people. We were getting late for dinner but it seemed important to get him off the road and to some place where he would be safe. But there was no one. With some hesitation, we approached him and guided him off the road and onto the side walk. As we were prepared to move away, he caught hold of my sleeve- Shivaji Nagar bus stand, Shivaji Nagar Bus Stand, sir – can so e one tell me where the Shivaji Nagar bus stand is, please. I looked around helplessly. There was no one on this lonely stretch of the road and either we would have to take him to the bus stop ourselves o leave him there to fend for himself. That option looked crude. The man was not well dressed but there was a kind yet beseeching look about him that compelled you to take him to the bus stop which I assumed was perhaps a few meters away. I took hold of his hand and guided him though the traffic as my wife walked ahead trying to get directions to where ever the stop was. As we walked , he began to narrate that he had got into a bus thinking that it was going to Shivaji Nagar but it was actually going in the opposite direction and by the time he had discovered it and he had been offloaded , it was a quite a distance. Since then, he had been trying to find his away fumbling his way and tapping his way through.

After we had gone a certain distance – longer than I thought, he suddenly asked for the time. 8.15 pm, I said looking perfunctorily at my watch and noticing how late it was getting. It is late; I am getting late, the old man mumbled to himself. I gave him an irritated look and muttered that it was I who was getting late. Eventually after trudging down traffic filled road with my arm around his elbow, we reached the busy Shivaji Nagar bus stand. Having reached there, we didn’t know where to deposit him. Busy stand, lots of people, lots of traffic, lots of buses. But the old man wasn’t finished yet. Mosque, Mosque … I am late for my evening prayers, can some one lead me to the mosque... I am late. I was confused, mixed up, angry and touched, all at once. Here we were, quite a way from the restaurant we had set out to go to, and we thought that we had reached him safely to his destination but that was not the case. The place he wanted to really go to was the mosque … and Shivaji Nagar bus stand was just the landmark that he was quoting…..

As we stood there confused, not knowing where the mosque was and wondering what to do, a group of burkha women came along and we were able to safely hand him over to there care and move on. But as we walked back, we could not but reflect back on that old man’s piety. Stumbling and bumbling, walking with a cane down a busy traffic filled street, he was intent on getting to the mosque and say his evening prayers. He had got on to a bus which was actually going in the wrong direction, was off loaded , had no more money and was walking back a long , long way to find his way to the mosque so that he could say his prayers. I could not but wonder and think about my own commitment … how often, for far lesser reasons, I have decided that I will call it a day and skip the worship service in church --- because it is too cold or too windy pr too rainy or just because I am far too lazy. The example of the gray bearded old man in a shirt and a checked lungi, tapping along with his stick and undauntedly walking along to the mosque will stay with me for a long, long time.