It was noon. The entire day had been spent in the scorching heat of this bustling, unforgiving city. I had been on my usual walk, but the scorching wind had made me decide to cut it short and leave the park early. Normally, I walk both to and from the park, but that day the suffocating heat, exhaustion, and shortness of breath got the better of me, and I chose instead to take a small autorickshaw that was waiting just outside the gates.
As I walked towards it, I was already preparing myself for refusal. The driver’s body language suggested that he was waiting for someone else. He stood there, uninterested, casually smoking a cigarette. Still, I approached him and asked if he would go a little further down the same road. To my surprise, he agreed and told me to sit. I hesitated for a moment, suspicious, but got in.
I gave him the address in a slightly harsh tone, wanting to make it clear that I was not some innocent woman he could try to take advantage of or become friendly with. As a woman, whenever I travel alone, every man who speaks to me or even passes by feels like a potential threat, and I cannot help but be on guard.
The man was frail, his body so thin it seemed made of bones alone. Somehow, that made him appear even more untrustworthy to me.
On the way, I asked if he had change—not really for the money, but just to show him I was being firm. He said he didn’t, then pulled over at a shop and asked me to get my note exchanged. I stepped out, changed the money, and got back into the rickshaw.
This time, with a hint of sarcasm, I asked why he and other rickshaw drivers and delivery boys never carried change—pointing out that surely it was because they expected passengers to leave the change as a tip. I was sure my words would put him in his place. Instead, his reply shook me to the core and has stayed with me ever since.
He said softly, “I haven’t earned a single rupee since morning. How can I possibly have change for a thousand-rupee note?”
As he spoke, his voice trembled, and his words stuck in his throat. In that moment, shame washed over me. I felt small—embarrassed by my own rudeness and by the way I had judged him so quickly, only because he was a man struggling to earn a living in a city where almost everyone owns a car.
I sat there, silent and helpless, realizing how the wrongdoings of a few men of the society have made women suspicious of even the innocent ones who are just trying to live.
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