A Mad Man

 

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While going for morning walk, I saw a man by the side of the road. He was trying to pull out a long steel bar which was perhaps leftover from some nearby construction work. I did not pay much attention to him and kept going. After half an hour when I was returning, I saw him once again at the same spot from a distance. I tried to understand what he was doing, and here is what I got:

First, he was sitting on the road side, on the ground, in a “palthi” position (squatting). He had a gunny bag besides him. He rose and again tried to handle the steel bar and then it became clear what he was trying to do. Since the steel bar was too long, as the steel bars at construction sites are, he was trying to bend the steel bar into multiple bends in order to put it in that gunny bag! Perhaps in order to carry it to somewhere like his home or to some shop to sell it. Now I took a closer look at him to understand if he was mad. I saw that he had got all his clothes right. But the manner in which he was shaking and moving gave an impression that he was “drunk”! So, in a drunken state, he was trying to bend a long steel bar with his bare hands, in order to put it inside a gunny bag! I was sure that he would never be able to do it no matter how much he tried.

I don’t know what happened to him after I passed by. I don’t know for how many hours he tried to do it or if he fainted or got hit by a passing vehicle, since he was not in his senses. I definitely do not expect to see him tomorrow at the same spot. Whatever happens to him, I wish he gets back to his home safe and stays sober at least in the mornings.

- Rahul Tiwary