THE BALLOON WAALA

Hot and humid, crowded and polluted yet charming- welcome to the national capital of the 1.2 billion nation –(New delhi, India) where traffic jams are an everyday affair and our ears are accustomed to the sound of honking horns .

On just another hot day in the capital, I happened to be caught in one of the famous dwarka flyover jams, luckily for me I was in the comfort of an AC car and the only way I felt the heat was through the heated argument cum road fight that was taking place in front of me and surprisingly not been stopped or mitigated by any of the by standers .Well how can I be blaming them when I myself was just enjoying the show. That’s the problem with PEOPLE you know, we blame, we smirk yet we do nothing about what we know is wrong and immoral. We are mute spectators in this world of chaos, BUT every now and then there is this one person who changes the way we think, who forces us to introspect and ask ourselves “what are we really doing? Merely blaming or offering solutions? Am I a part of the solution?”  This brings me back to the traffic jam which was caused by rash drivers and our very “effective “  traffic signals which stop working at the slightest change in weather but oh well  a tree fell 100km  from here bhai so it’s all forgiven.

While I sat and observed the road fight my attention was caught by  this huge red balloon and as I traced the owner of this balloon I realized it was a BALLOON WAALA !and before I  knew it I saw him approach the two men fighting and have an animated conversation with both of them. Within no time the two Bruce Lee(s) were back in their automobiles and the BALLOON WAALA BHAIYA was standing in the middle of the traffic in this scorching heat and what I saw next changed my perception about not only him but everyone we take for granted and look down upon.  He used his red balloon as a stop sign like traffic policemen do (who of course were going to arrive at the scene only after everything was sorted out just like in the movies) and started controlling the traffic. Letting cars from one side go while stopping the other sides, precisely managing the heavy incoming traffic and he did all this with a blissful smile on his face. It was as if he enjoyed it. And then it struck me –this was probably the only time in his life that he had some sort of control over people, the power he had right now made him feel almost ,as if, invincible. People were listening to him, doing as he directed .A simple BALLOON WAALA was now the king of the traffic! Standing in that unbearable heat -something that most people would loathe made him happy.

And honestly I felt inspired.

We need to be inspired; we need to look up to people. We need to know that the world is a wonderful place with wonderful people at every corner of the street and when we look we are sure to find magic!