She could easily use metro or any other means of travel in our well connected capital city; but we made it a point while searching for job for my wife that it has to be on the way to my workplace so that I can daily drop her and pick her up from just at the gate of her office building. She’s young, about to complete first year of marriage. She’s not new to Delhi but she has that hesitation to drive herself in Delhi traffic. With such evident crime rate, it’s only smart to be careful at every step. Finally we found the perfect workplace for her and so much motivated, she cleared her interviews and got the job. The office where she had to join was in an area well known to me, but form outside only. I never had a chance to visit that industrial part from inside. Although I had figured it on Google Maps, we still left home early to avoid traffic as we had to find the exact address. We were successful and reached the Googled address 10mins prior to the given time. The nervous face for the first day of office got a little smile. I rolled down the glass of our car and asked the old man to confirm if it was the building we were looking for. He looked like a security guard, who had just finished his duty, wearing the same pant and shoes, but a t-shirt instead of his duty-shirt. He told in a quivering yet confident voice that we had come a little off-direction and he started making hand signs to guide us to correct address. I could hardly understand the routes on those unknown streets, but I could notice the smile on my wife’s face was short-lived as Google Maps were once again, proven wrong. The man suddenly stopped giving me directions and said that he could come with us to guide us. To make that decision to let a stranger into my car, I speedily ran through all the exercise: looked at the back seat to ensure nothing worth stealing was there, recalled that he even mentioned the only one known landmark that had to be just next to the office, and he had just guided a lady and her son into the building he was in front of, also that he talked really politely repeating the words “Beta babu” again and again and lastly, that he was a skinny old man that I could tackle in case anything goes wrong. I looked at my wife once more and decided to let him in. To make sure I made no wrong decision, I asked him is it really ok with him to be bothered this much, to which he replied that the address is nearby and he was off his duty and will make his way from the other location as well as he knows the area totally, working there for last 20 years. It didn’t take more than 4-5mins for us to reach my wife’s office. He made me roll down his side’s glass and talked to an on-duty guard and ensured he had gotten us to correct place. Before I could slowly turn my car into the smaller side-street, I noticed him opening the door. He got down, I was already thanking him when he came over to the front window and requested to roll down. As soon as he did that, I knew that he was not a crook but he was going to ask for some money in exchange of his help. I has seen such faces before, so many times that I started thinking of how much should I take out of my wallet and get rid of him to drop my wife. He started by saying “Beta Babu, Hum apse bas ye kehna chaahte hain k desh ki seva do (2) prakaar se hoti hai, ek wo log hain jo wardi pehen k seva krte hain, jaise police, fauj, aur ek hm log krte hain, jo k ‘dress’ pehni ho k nahi, lekin ‘dress’ ke ‘decorum’ ko ‘maintain’ karte hain. Bees (20) saal se okhla mein alag alag company mein security ka kaam kiya hai. Bas yehi kehna tha Beta Babu.” (Translation at the end) And he just started walking away. I said “Thank You Uncle” once more while I found myself in gratitude, a feeling of respect; and regret for what all I was making up in my mind. I was now wishing I could talk to him longer, show him my respect, maybe even get to know more of him. Having no such option, I went ahead to drop my wife. Her office was around the corner, I could see a Maggie-cum-smoking point. My feeling of gratitude towards that uncle had not gone yet, and there was a new fear telling me that while picking her up in evening, I will not wait for my wife away from her office but daily bring my car till here to make sure she gets in fast, safe. While driving back as I reached the point where I had dropped Uncle, I started thinking of him again, that bright face, fair complexion with wrinkles that could make a perfect portrait, and the way he looked from his back while walking away in what appeared to me as a pride he took in serving someone. I told myself that in case sometime I got late to reach here, this street would also have a number of security guards serving their nation in their own special way.
Translation: “Dear son, I just wanted to say that there are two ways of serving the nation. One is how they do in uniforms like police, army. Other is like we do, wearing uniform or not, but maintain the decorum of the dress. I have been working in this area for 20 years as security guard in different offices. I had to tell just this much.”