Hero. Zero?
The monsoon rains lashed against the rickety tin roof, the sound a constant drumbeat against Raj’s temples. He huddled deeper into his threadbare shawl, the damp air clinging to him like a second skin. Delhi, the city of dreams, seemed a cruel joke tonight. Here, beneath the leaky roof of a shared tenement room, Raj wasn’t Hero Raj — the name that once sparked a thrill in his small-town Allahabad. Here, he was simply Raj, the weary puller, the invisible man weaving through the chaotic symphony of honking horns and yelling vendors.
It hadn’t always been this way. Raj remembered the scent of freshly cut leather, the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of his father’s hammer against the sole of a new shoe. His father, the cobbler, a man whose smile could light up the dingiest corner of their tiny Allahabad home. And Raj, his voice a melody that filled that home, practiced notes shimmering on the worn keys of the harmonium. He was a star in the making, his voice captivating audiences at local gatherings, his name whispered with a mix of awe and affection — Hero Raj — for his audience he was no less than a movie hero.
Then, the cruel twist of fate. His father, felled by a relentless fever, his calloused hands stilled forever. The weight of the family, a young wife and infant children with eyes wide with fear, settled heavily on Raj’s teenage shoulders. Dreams of Bombay, of his voice weaving magic on the silver screen, dimmed with each stitch he made repairing a torn coat to put food on the table.
Allahabad, with its familiar dusty streets and the comforting murmur of the Ganges, became too small for his burdened heart. Delhi, the city that promised everything, beckoned. But Delhi, in its relentless sprawl, had a different plan. Cobbling would not make ends meet. His melodic voice was drowned out by the city’s cacophony, his dreams crushed under the weight of rickshaw pedals. Days bled into weeks, weeks into months, the vibrant colors of his aspirations fading into the monotonous grey of Delhi’s skyline.
Yet, music remained his refuge. In the quiet moments between fares, he would hum along to the crackle of the radio, his voice a secret serenade amidst the city’s din. He found solace in a ragtag group of street performers, their nightly jam sessions under a makeshift stage of tattered cloth a flickering ember of his former passion. Their rural-classical music, a mix of raw emotions and shared dreams, kept his own flickering.
♫ chhammak chhoriyaan se nayanwa ladawat,
udti chidiya ke haldi ragad ke lagawat ♫
(translation: I make eye contact with the fine looking girls, I rub turmeric on flying birds)
These words to him aren’t macho boasts, but they are simply whispers echoing from the ruins of his past ambitions of making his impossibly big dreams possible. Allahabad hailed him as a hero, but now, in Delhi, he’s just a rickshaw driver carrying so much in his heart but doesn’t have anyone to talk it out. He craved to share his stories, his dreams, to find a single ear that wouldn’t judge the calloused hands gripping the worn handlebars. But who listens to a rickshaw driver’s tales? So, he spoke, casting a net of words into the throng, hoping to snag a flicker of recognition in a passenger’s eyes. Just a sliver of acknowledgement, a confirmation that beyond the creaking wheels and the city’s relentless thrum, he, the man with a thousand untold stories, still existed.
One evening, as the first tendrils of dusk painted the sky, a young man with lost eyes and a restless spirit climbed into his rickshaw. This was Ved, a stranger from another world, yet Raj felt a kinship he couldn’t explain. As soon as Ved complimented Raj’s movie star-like hairstyle, words tumbled out, a dam breaking after years of silence. Raj spoke of Allahabad, of dreams deferred, of the music that still thrummed within him. In Ved’s startled eyes, Raj saw a reflection of his own lost aspirations.
The encounter, brief as a shooting star, left an indelible mark. As he steered his rickshaw through the neon-lit streets that night, a strange feeling bloomed in Raj’s chest. Perhaps, in igniting a spark in Ved, he had rekindled a flicker within himself. Maybe, someday, he would find a sliver of time to dust off the harmonium, its keys silent witnesses to his journey. Maybe, under the vast Delhi sky, he would let his melody soar again, a testament to the enduring power of dreams, a whisper of Hero Raj — the singer who lived on, even in the heart of a weary puller. His last words to Ved kept echoing in his own head: “Yahan koi maai ka laal hum ko pehchaan nahi paaye ga. Andar se kuch aur hi hain hum.” (Translation: No son of a gun will recognize the real me in this city; I’m really something else on the inside.)
