Pa’s scooter was one of Neeti’s favorite things in life. She was always able to tell when he entered their lane because of the typical sound it made. The countless scooter rides that Pa took her sister, Drishti, and her to buy their birthday cakes, to buy fire crackers from a wholesale market, to see the city’s government area lit up on Independence Day or plain joy rides on Sunday evenings, only added more and more cherishable memories to her childhood.
It was during one of the ten day long Ganesh Chaturthi festival celebrations. Pa was going to take them to look at all the pandal decorations nearby. Neeti seldom bothered to peek into the scooter ‘dikki’. Pa had just opened it for a dust rag to wipe the seat. An interesting object lying inside caught her attention. It was a small, empty medicine bottle with a long string attached to its neck. She had no clue about its purpose.
“Pa, what’s this funny thing?”, she asked curiously, while picking the bottle from the string and swinging it.
"It is just an empty bottle, Didi. Pa must have missed throwing it away! Shall I throw it Pa?", Drishti interrupted as she did not want to delay her joy ride.
“Oh, that. Well, it is to help someone who might need it”, Pa explained.
“Who?”, Neeti enquired.
“I don’t know that”, he smiled.
“Huh?”, she had no clue.
So he just laughed and disclosed the secret to her.
“Few days back, I was riding to the neighboring town for a sales visit. I did not realise that the petrol tank would be empty half way. I had to then drag the scooter up to the petrol pump for quite some distance. As you can imagine, that cannot be fun”, he chuckled.
Neeti was still unable to get the story’s context. Drishti had got a little irritated by now. Pa had promised that this year he would show them more Ganpatis than the last.
"Why is Didi asking all this now?", she mumbled to herself. Nonetheless, she listened patiently as Pa continued.
“After that day, I started keeping this self-made instrument in the ‘dikki’ to help any fellow rider who had forgot, just like me, that his scooter may go dry. I can pull out some quantity of petrol from my scooter tank using this. The small quantity might just be enough for the poor chap to ride his scooter up to the petrol pump, rather than struggle all the way up there.”
The whole idea sounded like so much fun to her. Drishti's attention was also drawn towards the object by now. They had never drawn water from a well. The one in their apartment ran on a pump. Letting the small bottle down in the petrol tank, filling it up and then drawing it upwards just felt that way. Both the girls started enacting the entire scene with constant giggles. Fun portion apart, Neeti was so proud of Pa’s anticipation of helping someone, someday, somewhere, with absolutely no expectation in return.
Our lives are like scooters. Sometimes, they may run ‘dry’ of hope or willingness or resources. We often find people in such a situation on the ‘road’. Sharing a small quantity from our own ‘tank’ which is just enough for them to go on till they find their ‘petrol pump’ might mean a lot for them, if not for us. Keeping an empty bottle in our ‘dikki’ for lending something very small is not a bad idea after all!
Post cover photo courtesy : Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash
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