Disgrace!

He was the first man I met that day who smiled. Drunk with his favourite poison, he got into bus and settled down on a seat with a child14...

He was the first man I met that day who smiled. Drunk with his favourite poison, he got into bus and settled down on a seat with a child8217;s smile. Traces of muck and dry slime on his shirt gave him away. Once we moved away from him, he began humming.

My town, a sizeable hole for the swanky, always stared at subverts. Cochin never tolerated her hippies, harlots or bums. We never bothered to know the drunks lying on roads or climbing into buses.

Yet this lot never really meant to hurt our sense of decency. Sometimes they just forget to take the straight road home. Sometimes they simply get into a bus and sing. Our man bought his ticket and kept wailing an old number, 8216;Uncle moon, what8217;s in your lotus bowl8217;. His face beamed. A few of us tapped our feet and shared smiles. The bus boys in the back joined in for a chorus.

This metropolis had its share of citizens who kept their chins straight till they got home. One from that clan lit the fuse.8216;8216;Why the heck do you let such things into the bus?8217;8217; he asked. The comment cut our singer short. He looked hurt. Just when he thought to carry on, some others, dressed for family visits, joined the cause. Singing aloud in public was madness, they said.

So quickly had the conductor and the bus boys shifted sides that the old wino didn8217;t get time to make out why he was being dragged out of the bus. His fare thrust back in his pocket, the merry man was dumped at the next stop.

Clueless in his despair, he called out names. The bus driver jammed on the brakes and boys flew out. They who had sung along with the man a few minutes earlier were now pounding him on his face.

The drunk was thrown down flat, his head hitting the road. Then they planted two more blows on his ribs till the man cringed and cried, blood blurring his lines. As we watched, the heroes jumped back into the moving bus.

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The hitters narrated their adventure. The party-goers lent ears to the tale. None of us asked questions. That would have placed us on the side of a bum. We were not his kind. We kept our chins straight, the new age conformists who wanted no ruckus in our lives. We had learned to gulp our questions.

In that one shameful moment we stood by our silence and showed our colours. Like Dick Gregory, the black American activist of the sixties, who had seen a wino being punctured by a restaurant owner, we sat unmoved.

Remember Gregory8217;s essay, 8216;Shame8217;? Gregory had seen a bum taking food from Williams. After filling himself, the bum said he had no money. The lines now come, stinging:8216;8216;8230;Mister Williams jumped over the counter and knocked the wino off his stool and beat him over the head with a pop bottle. Then he stepped back and watched the wino bleed. I looked at the wino with blood all over his face and I went over. 8216;Leave him alone, Mister Williams, I8217;ll pay the twenty-six cents.8217; The wino got up slowly, pulling himself up to the stool, holding on till his legs stopped shaking. Then he said, 8216;Keep your money, son. You don8217;t have to pay, not now. I just finished paying for it.8217;8217;8217;

Today Gregory, I share your shame. Like a patch of dirt, that one moment of silence will stay with me.