Photo by V Srinivasan on Unsplash

His name was Balu.  Short for Balaji. He lived his entire life in what was then Madras. He had no recollection of his date of birth but was likely born around 1932. Five years before his beloved sister, Bharathi.

I came to know him as he stayed in the out-house of my uncle’s ancestral house. He was just around 5ft 2’, lean and wiry and with a perpetual half-stubble which changed to salt and pepper in later years. He had a bent right leg below the knee and used to hobble around. An attempt at corrective surgery had failed.

Balu was family. I had an inkling that my grandfather and Mama had helped in getting his sister married off to a nice guy working for the Railways.

He did odd-jobs for the house-hold and was the Man Friday whenever needed. But he lived and helped-out in a much larger community space. He stayed the night at the hospital to bail out a needy family. With his connects he was the go-to- person for weddings and family ceremonies. He explained the government forms and regulations to small shop-keepers and traders. Balu was fluent in Tamil but also had a good knowledge of English. We never knew whether he had passed his Matriculation exams or not. He had expressed his fear of Maths to me on a couple of occasions.

I have never seen a person with less wordly possessions. He had 3 half-sleeved shirts and 3 white veshtis. Two towels, undergarments and rubber slippers completed his wardrobe. Every year when we visited Madras my father used to gift him a shirt piece and a veshti. He also ensured that the shirt was stitched.

My folks knew that if you gave him money it would be soon spent on idli-sambar and coffee at the corner restaurant and the latest MGR film in town. He had a passion for the movies. He could recite the famous dialogues of MGR or the other thespian Sivaji Ganesan in one take.

It came as no surprise that Balu  gave English language tuitions to a starlet and a singer associated with Tamil films. He was also a big hit with children with his gift of telling stories and anecdotes. His re-telling of the Hindu epics would have done justice to the big screen. These sessions with the kids normally happened in a small park near his sister’s place.

In the thirty years or so that I knew him I have not seen a kinder or more simple person. Soft-spoken and always flashing his distinctive grin. He had lost an upper tooth. He never spoke about his problems. He never asked for money. Indeed he is the first person to advise me to never bargain hard with people like the vegetable vendors. Their margins were small. But also to be careful of the unscrupulous auto drivers who took many for a ride.

Balu passed away whilst sitting alone at a bus-stop adjacent to the lane where Bharathi lived. It looked as if he drifted into a peaceful sleep. I later heard that over a thousand people attended his funeral to pay their last respects. This ordinary Aam Aadmi had touched thousands of lives. In his death, came alive the true meaning and value of his existence.

An extra-ordinary human being. We still miss his toothless grin.