GUIDE
Imagine yourself lost in a disorderly crowd of giants, all of them at least thrice as tall as you!
That’s the memory childhood brings to my mind.
Once, i lost myself in a crowd of rough, rugged, hardened adults. i was always a sick child, small and weak for my age, and hardly reached their knees. Men shouted, threatened, abused, and spat vitriol at each other, at some unseen enemy, and at the whole world.
Dust thrown up by the rowdy multitude choked me. My head reeled with air, foul with sweat, tobacco, and alcohol. Fresh air was beyond my reach: i was too short among those giants.
Ruffians trod on my tender feet. Their crudity crushed my childhood naivety. My cries never reached them amidst the pandemonium; even if they did, who cared for an unknown, lost orphan in that vicious squabble?
I stumbled and staggered through shins and shanks, bumping against knees. I was brutally crushed, kicked, trampled and tossed, losing all sense of direction and time. The crowd seemed endless, and so my ordeal.
Then someone stooped down to me, lending me a finger.
It was no abatement of my plight; my guide had his own ways and ideas. The moment i held his finger, he clasped my wrist in his iron grip, and dragged me after him without mercy.
My body ached, my legs pained, my feet were sore, even my wrist sprained at being pulled. At one moment, frustrated and fatigued, i even rebelled, and tried to pull myself from the unknown and unforgiving guide. But he won’t leave me.
I could not see his face. The unrelenting crowd, the dust, and stampede made this impossible.
“Who are you? Where are you taking me?” i shouted with all might. His stoic silence was impenetrable. He simply tugged me after him, without wasting a word, or a glance, as if under some imperative compulsion.
He won’t pause, he won’t rest, nor let me rest. unmindful of my injuries and abrasions, indifferent to my hunger and thirst, he kept me pulling after him day after day, night after night.
I resigned to fate. I continued to stumble and to stagger; to bump and to get bruised; to be crushed and kicked; to be trampled and tossed. Now, i may say, i had a direction, though i didn’t know what. No choice, no volition; it was just being dragged after the unknown, unseen guide.
At last, our endless journey took us to the fringes of the crowd. Gradually the dust around settled down. I lifted my eyes at my guide, my savior, the author of my fate: he was the blind madman of our town.
The hubbub faded in distance, and he left me abruptly.
It was long before i came to myself.

Later, life taught me that people are never bad. Insecurity makes them callous and competitive. Mobs are lost individuals. Wolves are lost lambs.
Whatever that may be, the traumatic memory left an indelible scar on my pliable psyche.
Thankfully, never did i outgrow my abhorrence for the ways of the world; for its notion and necessity of competition; for its fetish for success.
I am grateful to my guide, who was blind to the manners of the mob, and deaf to my puerile protests.