Some time last August, I rang my friend who was visiting Bangalore for a week. She had got married and settled in Mumbai just a month earlier. She was in town for the Rakhi celebration with her family. I had it all planned up. I would leave office, drop by her store & meet with her for an hour or so, & then take off to the gym for my RPM class. So after work, I drove down to her store where I was to meet her. For a lack of parking spots, I hovered around till I found a place in a nearby lane. Feeling very smug about other cars still not having found parking, I started walking to her store. As I got to the crossroad, I saw a gathering. Now, normally crowds unnerve me & I usually look in another direction. But then curiosity got the better of me & I decided to take a peak. What I saw was a whole lot of men standing around, some peaking through to the centre of the group where obviously something interesting was happening, and some discussing away in grave seriousness about the happening. As I got closer, I saw that there were women in the middle of the gathering, engaged in some activity that had piqued the interest of the crowd. All of a sudden, I saw sarees being held high to barricade the view... and by the time I turned the corner, I had heard it- the shrill cry of a newborn. It made my heart swell! I slowed down and managed to see the sarees drop. A young girl lay there on the footpath holding her baby now wrapped in some cloth, the umbilical chord still intact. A rickshaw driver was heard saying how they couldn't make it to the hospital in time and had to make this urgent stop. God bless those people on the road who dropped their work & helped the hapless young mother-to-be. How many of us would have, I'm not sure. Truly over-whelming and not to mention, humbling!
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