ANGEL IN THE BASEMENT

I am the optimistic sort, the type of person you can easily call foolish, because I believe that most people are either openly good or have a hidden store of goodness locked inside them. It may take a smile, or a listening ear, or sympathy, or praise, to unlock that store.

But I digress. Today I was lucky to encounter a really good person.

For a long time, I had been searching for a navy blue chiffon dupatta (stole worn over a salwar-kameez). Having done the rounds of all the shops and big departmental stores that I know of, I had encountered dozens of shades of blue (royal, ink, sky, powder, and that rather virulent shade called firoza). When I did meet navy blue, it was either in cotton or georgette (which get crushed too easily) or too expensive (BIBA had a gold-dotted navy chiffon at Rs 600 – which would have been way too heavy a burden for my shoulders).

I had gone down to the crowded basement of Gokul Market opposite the cacophonous Borivili Station to buy something else altogether, when a spirit in my feet led me (as the azure-blue loving poet, Shelley, would have put it) to a small hole-in-the-corner shop which sold only dupattas.

I saw navy-blue in cotton. I asked for it in chiffon. The man in the shop showed a brighter blue chiffon dupatta. I asked if a darker one was possibly there. The man said he’d try from some other shop of his, went up the winding, narrow stairs, and came down soon with the exact navy blue chiffon dupatta that my heart had desired for so long so longingly.

Absolutely delighted, I handed over the VERY reasonable sum of Rs 110 (did not even think of bargaining it down to, say, Rs 100). With a heart as light as the chiffon, I floated up to ground and went in search of the tailor the man had told me about to get the edges of the dupatta stitched (“beaded”, as we call it).

As I was waiting in the tailor’s shop, the dupatta-seller came hurrying. “Sister, here is your ten-rupee note. It was lying on the floor of my shop. It must have fallen out of your bag. I guessed you would have come here to stitch the dupatta, so I came hurrying to return the money.”

I was amazed and humbled. This man had come all the way from his shop (quite a long way, actually), jostling past festival-shopping-mad crowds, on the slim chance that I would be still there in the tailor’s shop, just to return a small amount of money! My smile got wider, my steps got lighter and the sun got brighter, all because of this one unselfish act of honesty.

Angels don’t always descend from the heavens, they also emerge from basements. This unlikely angel just made my day.