Voice of the New Normal

 I hear his voice again today, after what seems like an eternity. He has an unmistakable, distinct voice. The kind that is hard to miss and impossible to forget. I find myself smiling and I feel lighter in the heart and head. His voice seems to herald a new beginning,  a fresh start.  

I remember hearing his voice more than a year back when  we moved to this community,  calling out from the street and announcing his arrival.  It was a typically, hot and humid Indian summer day with an almost cruel Sun bearing down on the black tar roads. In the midst of such a blistering day, his call cut across in a lilting tone reaching an almost musical crescendo. When I first heard it,  I thought it was a child's voice. There was something very childlike and enthusiastic in the voice that carried across the community. When I waved my hand from the third floor to indicate for him to come up, I realized he was a much older gentleman. When he rang the doorbell and I saw him up close I realized that he may have been easily in his 50s, if not more, a face weathered by the unrelenting forces of Nature and hardwork. Yet, his voice had a childlike enthusiasm unhampered by the mundane, routine work that he did day after day.  He said that he takes away old newspapers, cartons, and even old  electronic goods. He was the Community's 'Kabadiwala Bhayya'.  A nomenclature, that he asked me to save as his name for his mobile number. As he weighed the old newspapers he assured me that his scales were correct and he would give me the right price for all the old, unnecessary and useless stuff I was giving away. I assured him back that I was grateful he was taking away all the clutter and if anything I should be paying him for that! 

I offered him a bottle of water and he seemed very grateful for it.  Have we set the bar so low, for our collective societal behaviour,  that when an almost natural empathetic gesture should elicit such a feeling of surprise and gratitude? That is something to think about...

The months passed and he was a regular on the roads and at home too. As it happens, gradually his sing-song voice calling out for old newspapers et al, merged with the other background noises, which we tend to tune out. 

Then the Lockdown for Covid-19 happened. Suddenly, everything we took for granted came to a stand still. The regulars on the road and at home no longer were heard or seen. The silence was deafening.  We no longer heard the 'Kabadiwala bhayya', we no longer heard the children playing noisily on the street below, we no longer heard the househelps exchange greetings noisily as they passed each other heading to their respective houses of work.

But gradually, things are getting back to what we now call a New normal. The human spirit is such, it's like that shoot of a tenacious plant that grows in between the most rocky surfaces. I hear the 'Kabadiwala bhayya's call today and though I sense a bit of weariness in it, it is a reassuring voice to hear. He comes up to the house, without my actually asking him to and we exchange enquiries, we talk about Covid-19, and how life has changed.  He wearily confesses how many households no longer take newspapers anymore so the slump in his earnings may take a while to recover. Immediately I feel guilty for having stopped the newspapers. When we took this decision, I am sure I never really considered how such a personal decision would affect someone at such a grassroot level. 

As he hauls his scales on his slumped shoulders and leaves with a water bottle in hand, I know I have to make that phone call to the Newspaper guy to resume the papers.  I may still not read them, but I know it would make a difference to this man.  And I think, that is how we all can slowly and steadily resume our long walk back to the good old normal we knew.