Dasarath-the Good Samaritan
Dasarath-the Good Samaritan
In our lives we meet a certain class of people who are not related to you and who ar not even known to you but they suddenly appear in the scene from nowhere to lend their helping hands when you are all of a sudden confronted with a problem or a difficult situaton. Today I am going to relate one such real life story and the purpose being to record my gratitude to one of these good Samaritans – Dasarath.
In the year 2000 I planned a visit to Mumbai to seek my fortune and approached some of my local friends to know whether they could be any help in finding a temporary place to stay and one of them came up with the idea of putting me up in a flat owned by his friend at Goregaon, the film city where he used to work as a technicians at one of the film studios. Needless to say that I was immensely pleased with my friend and thanked him profusely. In next few days he contacted his friend and informed me of his willingness to allow to me stay as a temporary accommodation and I went ahead to book my railway ticket and making other arrangements.
As the day of journey started approaching my minds was filled with excitement and uncertainty and on the appointed I boarded Mumbai-bound Geetanjali Express and the train started off carrying a passenger who responded to the call of the unknown. The first few hours in the train are the most difficult phase in a long train journey and I was fortunate enough to pick up a few acquaintances. The compartment I was travelling in had a large numbers of persons who worked in jewellery workshops in and around Mumbai. Among the co-passengers with whom I developed a fair bit of intimacy was Dasarath-a dark and young handsome person with a pair of bright eyes in his mid-twenties and what struck me most was courage and determination which I came to know when he told the personal story of his life. He fled home for fear of study at the age of 17 and boarded a train bound for Mumbai. And thereafter the hard struggle began.
After doing months of doing odd jobs just to keep his body and soul together, he finally landed himself in a firm of civil contractors. As he was quite intelligent and a quick learner he impressed his boss with his performance and who offered him to work as a subcontractor under him. Very soon he established himself in the field successfully. I was obviously bowled over by his success story and our journey too entered into its lap. The train reached Dadar late in the evening and both of us were to get down at the station and Dasarath before bidding good-bye to me did not forget to leave his phone number with me.
The person, my friend's friend, who was supposed to receive me at Dadar was nowhere to be seen and I was extremely anxious and started fearing the worst that something must have gone horribly wrong somewhere! After waiting for more than an hour I grew impatient and made a frantic call to his phone. The cold and rude voice that greeted me at the other end said it all. I felt shattered for a few minutes to collect my wits and then decided to go to a hotel near Dadar station. I could not sleep well, the thought of the conduct of the person whirled in my mind. I knew it was just next to impossible to continue my stay at the hotel even for a few. How and when I exactly fell asleep I did not know and had a dream too. In it appeared Dasarath with his reassuring smile that just put my troubled mind to rest.
The next morning I woke up feeling a shade better and made up mind to seek Dasarath's help in my hour of crisis. I visited a PCO and shakily pressed his phone number to be greeted by a warm and friendly voice and when told about my woes he immediately asked me to wait before he could send one of his men to pick me up. He kept on assuring me not to worry. Within hours his man came at my hotel and we were off to Powai where Dasarath was working on a project and all smiles in greeting me. I was put up in small room and was stayed there for a fortnight as a guest. What earned him my respect was the knowledge I subsequently gathered form his men that I was not the only beneficiary of his genorosity he does it umpteen times in his daily life and immense popular man . The only time he displayed his annoyance when I wanted to spend money . May Good Samaritans like Dasaraths may thrive and grow in numbers and make the world a better place to live in!
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