Mr. Kataria

 

We used to go for morning walks to the beach - sometimes we used to take the good old bus no. 253 which ran at about 20 minutes intervals. We were 15 years old and didn’t care for the world, and vice versa. 

One fine day as we were walking on the road, and still some distance from the beach, a blue ambassador car stopped and offered us a ride to the beach. It was our good old Mr. Kataria. He lived in the same society as us. A lift to speed up our morning walk? But we took it as we were happy to be travelling in a private car. A rare thing for us vagabonds.  We said our hellos and got in. As he was about to close the doors, a homeless tramp with a fractured leg hobbled towards the car.  Mr. Kataria saw this and immediately offered him a lift. We thought - wow what a nice gesture. He got in and as he was injured we gave him more space. Mr. Kataria told him to put his feet up. What a great man Mr. Kataria was. The homeless man sat royally. A few distance from the beach we told Mr. Kataria to stop the car and told him we would walk the remaining distance- after all we were all out for a morning walk. We got out but the homeless man still with his feet up on the front seat hanging and relaxing  told Mr. Kataria to drop him off a few miles farther. It was then Mr. Kataria realised he was not part of our group. We walked away thinking what great deed Mr. Kataria had done. True humanitarian.  But Mr. Kataria was screaming his head off telling the homeless man to get out. He was scared. We heard none of it since we were already some distance away. We were in awe of Mr. Kataria. 

When we got back from our walk we heard a car screeching in our society. It was the great humanitarian. He stopped the car and started yelling at us saying he thought the guy was one of us and so he was helping him. We didn’t know where to look or what to say. 

After he finished his lecture, he went off speeding his car even more. We just couldn’t control it and burst out laughing. There goes our good old man.