Early part of this week I was in Kolkata often addressed as City of Joy, along with my colleague Mukul for finalizing catalogue for painting unit of Jajpur Cooperative.
This city has always been closure to the heart for its commonness which becomes vivid even to an outsider with 'ambassador' cars running all around. I also knew sweetness of this city known fondly for its 'misthis'. However what was unknown to me and my colleague Mukul was presence of "uncommon" honesty in common man of the city.
We took a taxi to MG road, got down there and realized after sometime that Mukul had left his cell in the taxi. We tried to follow the taxi but since traffic signal got cleared, taxi drifted away from our sight. As a last hope I tried to ring Mukul's number. Phone was picked by the taxi driver. He shared his current position and taxi number and requested us to stay back at the place where he had dropped us. Still with disbelief in heart we ran to the place where his taxi had turned after traffic signal and the scene before us came as a pleasant surprise.
There were few people waving hand to board the cab and the taxi driver was refusing them, showing the cell out of taxi window and shouting that he has to go MG road for returning this. I was overwhelmed at this gesture of the 'common man'. While he was turning his taxi towards us in the traffic, we reached to his place. He joyfully handed the cell to us. Pedestrians around, requested us to pay something to the taxi driver ,which he refused to accept. I tried to persuade him and atlast he accepted the small sum when we told him that we are not paying for his honesty but for the happiness of getting back a cell which was gifted by some one very dear.
The 'uncommon' common man left with new passengers onboard and we left the place with an everlasting imprint about another 'uncommon' commonness of the 'City of Joy'
