Will begin with a familiar proverb- “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, I think this is what you should rely on while paying a visit to any place or monument specifically. When I disclosed my plan to visit ‘Qutub Minar‘ to my friends, they greeted me with sunken faces. On asking the reason, they bluntly said; Ek khambha hi to hai, why are you so eager to see that? Anyhow, they kept my words and we were all set to explore one new place. Last minute addition in members dragged us from bike to auto albeit this journey proved to be one of the enriching experience of my life. In fact, I would say that I was propelled to write this blog due to those incidents only.
I won’t talk much about ‘how to reach there’ or its ‘history’ as you can easily google them and find. Also, if any place is located within the metro city, it isn’t beyond our reach. The only bit which I would like to share is- Book your entry ticket online otherwise you might end up spending a good time of your visit in that boring queue.
My first glance at this 73-metre high tower built by Qutub-din-Aibak was not much different from my friends. I could see nothing but a tall tower and the remains around. The situation becomes pitiable when you can’t ascend it to feel the height or talk with the sky. Also, the colour of minar isn’t as colourful as the crisp picture on Instagram which can tempt you. But as I have said earlier, Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, if there are a couple of reasons not to visit then, on contrary there are also plenty of reasons to pay to visit too. The only applied condition is you should have an ardent desire to make it worth. In layman term, think like a thrift person that if I am paying for a ticket, I have to squeeze my every penny out of it in the visit.
As always, this time too, I was looking for some spots with my Pragmatica to perceive this place from a different perspective. Look how I made my journey memorable and useful too.
Now, the interesting part of the story starts. On the way back, we took an auto to reach our desired destination. Driver bhaiya was a middle-aged person with the earphones plugged in, in both the ears to not allow the unwanted noise in his mind. We didn’t have to negotiate for the fare as he told exactly what we have given while coming. While in the way, he stopped at one of the turnings. We thought that maybe he wants to take assistance from google map but we were miserably wrong. He took out two packets of biscuits from the bag and called out those children of street dwellers who used to live on the street or roadside due to the meagre economic condition. You can find a number of them if you are roaming late-night or early morning. The two children were first reluctant to take but their compassionate eyes showed that they haven’t had biscuits for days. On calling twice, they came, they took and went with the same pace to the pace where they were. I am not much sure about their age but the older one was 10-12 years old and the younger one can be put in age group 7-9, perhaps. There wasn’t any sign of their parents as either of them might have gone for work.
After this act of generosity, the earphone was again in his ears and the auto ran ahead at average speed. At the next turning, he did the same thing- took out a few packets of biscuit and distributed it among children. I was deeply touched by this humanistic experience by an auto driver where many riches fail to do so. On enquiring- bhaiya, how often do you do this?
Mai to daily he krta hu; he said and also added that their father used to spend most part of their earned money on liquor, frustrated as he said while uttering some ab-usive words about them.
-Shashank
Pragmatic's Personas 