Inspirational short story about a tea-deliverer

Dreams on a Pivot

If a single man can fester a thousand dreams then his is a story that definitely must be told. But what about the thousands who dare to dream thanks to this one man? Isn't theirs a story worth telling as well? Here I have caught one such dream and brought it to you to show that dreams still have a place in this world. Please note, all characters in this story are fictional except for one!

Munna was the average tea-deliverer in the city of Mumbai. He rode everyday from his shop in Mandvi Marg to the offices nearby delivering dozens of cups of tea. One day, he was late for his delivery, so he took his friend’s cycle and began gliding down the road in supersonic speed. “Move, move,” he called out. The cycle’s ring had long been broken and he had to rely only on his verbal intonations to warn people of his approach. A passerby failed to see the speeding cycle and Munna had to swerve at the last minute to avoid colliding into him. “Can’t you see where you are going? Do you see mountains falling anywhere? Stop speeding like this!” The angry passerby vented his fury at the boy by spitting on the ground and pounded his fists at him. But Munna was already half-way down the road.`

With the road somewhat clearing now, Munna began to pedal with confidence and his scrawny legs had to move quickly to keep up with the momentum. A fine breeze began to blow behind him and he felt like he was on top of the world. It would soon come. The spot he would wait to pass everyday. It after all had the poster of his hero stuck to its wall. He finally came upon it and he slowed his cycle to a slow trickle. His heart swelled when he looked at the elegant man’s face in the poster. He had a square-jaw, thick lips and wore rimless glasses. His lips were parted like he had been captured in a moment of great oration. Munna smiled, he vowed he too would own a face like that one day. He too would address people from a platform and raise his hands when he wanted to say something important. He too would nod his head airily at people and the audience would laud him, besot him with innumerable praises, sing anthems in his name and promise to vote for him and only him. What a day that would be...

Suddenly the tea glasses trembled. A speeding car had just shaken the very foundations of the antiquated road. Munna’s reverie broken by the jangling sound, pulled him back to reality. Shit! he thought, he really had to hurry now. The face of the supervisor flashed before his eyes and he could only think of pedalling faster and faster till the wind was behind him again.

“Slow…slow! Do you have a meeting with God?,” Laxman, the security-officer bellowed at Munna through his tobacco-stained teeth. Munna stood gasping at the entrance of the building that housed the offices of various computer sales and services companies. He had braked his cycle just in time to avoid a near-fatal collision with a bike that was coming out of the ‘In’ gate.

 “How old are you!” Laxman barked at the boy helping him steady the cycle.

“Eight,” Munna said still reeling under the disastrous consequence that could have been.

“Eight! And you think you are a big hero?”

“No…it was getting late, so I just…”

“Just what... thought you could ride the cycle like those heroes! Corrupting everyone’s minds, that’s what they do, the movies.” Laxman‘s face was beating with anger.

Munna had no time to listen to the ramblings of an old man. He quickly embarked upon his cycle and banged at the pedal putting the cycle into quick motion. “Do you fancy yourself to be some kind of martyr?” Laxman continued. He was the sort of man who couldn’t stop talking whenever life offered a chance. And a chance this was, to speak his heart and vent his fury at everything in general and nothing in particular. “If life means so little to you, why not barter it for a few rupees. At least you can make one man happy...” Munna was beyond earshot. He was not even close to lending his ear to anything at the moment. “And if that one man is somebody other than yourself consider you have done a good deed...” Laxman realised the futility of his non-stop tirade. No one had bothered, nothing had shaken, everything had gone back to being the same. “Pesky children...” he muttered and settled himself back  heavily into the closest chair. He continued muttering some incomprehensible words under his breath.

Munna quickly parked the cycle and ran up the stairs with the parcels of snacks and tea. He had four flight of stairs to climb before he could reach the office of ‘AMOL Network Services Pvt. Ltd’. He began to find the going to tough after completing just the first flight. How was he going to finish the rest? Between the gasping and sweating, he remembered some words his hero had spoken...he repeated them climbing one-step at a time.

“The reins of the country should remain with the people,” Munna said vociferously. The steps became easier to climb.

“Its time to bring about change in every street of our country...” he raised his arms and his underdeveloped body began to feel energised.

“Let’s work together to make this country of ours greater than what it already is...” suddenly the steps didn’t seem like steps anymore. They were just a means to reach the top. He may be a common delivery boy, but there was another chaiwala who had shaken this world with his delivery! And how he had done it! Could it be possible that he could do the same?

“Parcel’s come!” Shiv the chain-smoker shouted from the balcony of his office when he saw Munna approaching with tea and snacks. The men got up from their desks and cheered and greeted Munna by slapping him on the back.

There was a snack room by the side of the office and Munna laid all the goodies on the table. “Kadak chai saab, just they way you like it," he said and began pouring the tea into the glass containers. Everyone filed into the room and grabbed a cup of tea along with a snack.

“Say Munna, you didn’t come last Friday. Where were you,” Shiv the inquisitor among the group asked of Munna.

“Last Friday, I was at a rally saab,” Munna replied with a smile on his face.

“Rally? What rally? Some kind of protest you mean?”

“No saab. The political rally in Navi Mumbai.”

“Why would you go to that? You can’t vote, and even if you did they are a real waste of time.”

“I just go to see the people around me. It’s sometimes good to know the things happening around you,” Munna said, sitting by the chair watching everyone drink the tea.

Shiv eyed Munna suspiciously. He sensed there was something evasive in Munna’s response.“You know, one tea-deliverer’s story cannot become every tea-deliverer’s story, right?” he said, with a look of seriousness on his face. Munna didn’t know whether he meant it good-naturedly or in a mocking-sort-of way. But his face lost the joviality it had before. He  began to feel at a loss. What should one do in such situations, he thought? Should they stand up and defend their dreams or should they just accept the reality of the situation. Even if he was going to defend, what exactly was he going to say? That he too will be the face of a poster one day or that his towering personality will be centre of a huge following of supporters and well-wishers? It sounded foolish to even think about it.

“Let him be, Shiv.” Farhad came by and clanked his empty teacup into the holder. He handed a ten-rupee note to the boy and said, “Here Munna, take this. Spend it on whatever you want.” Munna accepted the note graciously and at the same time felt oddly relieved that someone would care enough about him to tip and rescue him. “Shiv, save your mockery for another time, ok?”

Shiv waited till Farhad left. Once he made sure that he had he turned to his friend Vikram who was sniggering by the side. “Say Vikram,” he chided, “can one lucky fellow’s dream become all of our dreams? Or can one slum-dweller become every slum-dweller’s inspiration?”

“You know Shiv,” Vikram said as though he was giving his question serious thought. “There is a ticket for a train tonight that goes from here straight to hell. I will buy you a ticket if you want. That’s the only to get your dreams realised, the only way to reach to the top of the pinnacle! Chug-chug-chug! Chug-chug-chug! Come Munna, don’t you want to hop on?” asked Vikram moving around the room imitating a train engine. Shiv laughed uproariously. He slapped his friend on the back and they both left the room, each in splits of laughter.

Munna quietly cleaned the table. He drank the leftover tea that was cold and some of the tit-bits of the vada. He arranged the room the way it was and switched off the lights. He made his way down the steps that now seemed like steps of drudgery and impoverishment.

“Your third run today. How much did you make?” asked Giridhar the owner of Kwality Tea Shop. He was sitting by a table and chair at the entrance of the tea shop. Munna parked the cycle by a pole and morosely removed the empty flask and cups from the stand.

“Thirty extra,” he said matter-of-factly.

“That’s excellent Munna! You know where you will be if you keep continuing like this, don’t you?” Giridhar always encouraged and motivated Munna to do his best everyday. He was of the school of thought that a tip earned everyday was not just a tip, but a fuel to one’s dream.

“Yes, I know. I will be delivering tea for the rest of my life! And I will be working here as the delivery-boy for the rest of my days!”

“Munna! What’s wrong?! Why do you speak like that?” asked Giridhar. “Come, sit here my boy. What is it thats troubling you?”

Munna sat by a small stool next to Giridhar. “Show, let’s see your leg.” Giridhar gently laid his hands on Munna's left leg that was slightly more shrivelled than the right. “Does it hurt?”

Munna stood up and walked up and down the floor of the teashop. “My leg’s fine. There is nothing wrong with it. What wrong is with people and the way they mock at people like us.”

Giridhar understood immediately what might have happened. “Did you say anything to anybody?” he asked.

"There was no need to. They laugh even more i have spoken anything, even before I do anything.”

Giridhar looked at the child pacing before him. He may as well be considered an orphan after the death of his mother and an indifferent father.

“Do you remember Munna, when you were small, you would crawl up the steps of this shop? And then as you grew, there were days when you couldn't even walk. Do you remember those days or have they taken leave of your memory?

"I remember," Munna mumbled.

"Do you also remember that you had a brother and a mother. Where are they now?"

Munna remained silent.

"Where the bloody hell are they?" Giridhar screamed breaking the quietness of the surroundings. A woman peeked out of her window to see where the sound had come from.

“They’re dead.” Munna said the words with a finality that felt like the dead and departed had finally made the last journey out of his life.

“That’s right! Dead! And that’s where you would have been...if not for...” Giridhar temples hurt from the effort. “If not for...being the wrong child everyone pins their hopes on. Your mother did it, and now apparently the whole world does it!”

Munna stood pointlessly, taken aback from by his caretaker’s passionate words.

A teakettle screamed from inside and a spew of steam rang out from it. Munna shook, frightened by the sudden noise. Giridhar too stood shocked, unable to move or speak, “I...I...”, he tried. The intensity of the moment shattered, Munna giggled at the sudden wordlessness that had gripped his father-figure. Giridhar gave in and they both sat laughing by the steps of the shop.

“Come tomorrow, we go to Worli.” Giridhar said mixing the decoction with the hot boiling milk. He drew the tea high above his head and let it spill from the top. He collected the flowing tea in another cup that was below by his waist, Munna’s tired body longed for a sip of that delicious hot tea.

“What’s in Worli?” Munna savoured the fantastic flavour of the tea in which everything was in just the right proportion.

“A camp. A big one. We are going to have to prove everyone wrong, don’t we?”

“That is a long way off, Dada!”

“Not so long away, my dear boy. You will be serving tea tomorrow not just delivering it. And serving it to real dignitaries...” Giridhar’s twinkling eyes shone like as though he was still in his youth.

“Haa haa! You na dada, can tell some real funny jokes.” Munna was through half the glass of tea already.

“Munna Deshpande! How dare you?! By the way, we will have to do something about your name. It doesn’t sound....ummm grand enough.”

Laughter rang out from ‘Kwality Tea Shop’ like it had never rang before. A passer-by paused before it and wondered what the joke might be. He entered anyway to savour the delectable flavours emanating from it. “One strong cup of chai,” he ordered.

“Coming right up, Sir!” Munna ran in with a tray in his hand and a smile on his face.