Mirinda!!!

This is a certain incident that happened when I was doing my industrial training in BHEL, Hyderabad. Not sure why I wanted to write about. If it seems lame and boring plzz avoid it… Sudhams!!!

A few weeks back I went to Lingampalli station(hyd) for cancelling the tickets that I’ve reserved earlier. After waiting in the Q for about 45 mins, I finally got to the counter. The man was quite polite and he quickly cancelled all the three tickets. He asked me if I had a change of 40/- so that he can give me round figure of 900/- . When I said that I didn’t have any, he said that I’d have to go and bring as he didn’t have the change. Normally I wudn’t have liked listening to these sort of things but as I found the guy polite I decided to go get the change.

He gave me the cancellation tickets. I walked on to platform but I knew there were no shops in there. So I walked all the way to the 6^th platform on the footover bridge checking the cancelled tickets and found a shop having softdrinks. I usually buy thumsup or pepsi but for some reason chose mirinda. I got the change I needed so I walked back to the counter this time drinking the mirinda. I got my money and walked out of the station. It felt kind of weird drinking mirinda after a long time (probably coz of not eating anything after the previous day’s lunch). So then I came out of the station drinking the mirinda and then checked my mobile if I had any msgs. Sunny called up and told that he and Prithvi would meet me at BHEL.

Just as I kept my mobile in my pocket and opened the bottle cap again, I saw an old lady with a small steel vessel. I don’t remember her face but I’m sure she’s well over 70 years of age. I closed the bottle and started to walk slowly trying to figure out what she’s upto. She quietly sat beside the muddy water pool that might’ve formed coz of the heavy rain the previous night. I started to walk even slower to see wat she’s gonna do next. She started to gather the water from the pool makin sure she’ll collect it from the upper level.(I thought I didn’t help as the entire pool is equally muddy.) this tym I stopped walking and tightly closed the bottle holding the cap between my fingers and letting it hang. i wondered wat she’s gonna do with that water. I had no clue in wat way a small amount of muddy water can help a 70 year old women. May be for some household thing I thought not sure wat I could be.

But to my surprise she emptied the entire vessel of the dirty water onto herself over the saree which was nevertheless already very dirty. It was then my mind went kind of blank. She did the same again and this time I realised that she was actually trying to take a bath. I couldn’t stand there any long so I started to walk slowly trying not to think of it. I no longer felt like drinking the mirinda for some reason. I even wanted to throw the botttle away but didn’t do that either. I just kept walking till the main road trying to get the scene out of my mind.

I got into an auto and still didn’t open the bottle. I kept thinking about the old lady. I was in some kind of black out not knowing whats actually going in my mind. I didn’t knew if could help her in some way.  The mirinda in my hand is no longer cool. I closed the bottle cap tightly. Finally I got down near bhel, went inside and walked to the park and sat there on a stone. I kept the bottle on the ground beside me. After a few minutes the guys came. Sunny took the bottle without saying a word, drank the mirinda and threw the bottle away.