One good man

Jasbhai is the proverbial do-gooder, with a dash of whimsy to him. A retired civil engineer, to him goes the credit for fighting and petitioning for years to get the neighbourhood a post office, thereafter a water tank and now a public garden. We grew up seeing Jasbhai selling postcards and stamps on a roadside bench while the post office was not there, to call the attention of the authorities and also to reach out to harassed customers.

Our new neighbourhod is barely a seven-minute drive from our old home. Jasbhai’s reached out to us during the last three years with regular monthly calls to check up on Adil’s academic progress, who had to be packed away to a Maharashtra engineering college after the Godhra riots. Jasbhai had tried hard to ensure Adil’s admission in Vadodara when we shifted house and always apologises for having failed to do so.

Jasbhai was neither a family friend in the strict sense, nor an immediate neighbour, just a kind old gentleman who believes in completing public tasks that no one else does. “Somebody has to begin, we cannot be mute spectators always,” says Jasbhai.

There have been sympathetic wishes and many justifications too for the riots. At times I wished I could strike off the date from the calendar, but not any more, for now it has to it a dash of sweetness. Luck seems to shine on us finally, for we have a Jasbhai who prays for us. I look forward to Holi and also to collecting the Palash blooms as I did earlier, for the imagined bloodstains on the blooms seem to have been washed off finally, by Jasbhai. And I add a prayer, for more such Jasbhais.