Wet clothes, dripping hair and a jostling sea of humanity made a very irritable combination. The crowd was describable by only one word:phenomenal. There were people everywhere, orchestrating an almost impossible balance in that sardine can of a train compartment. My whole being was splitting at the seams, mentally and physically.

The self-victimisation demon, who comes-a-visiting at such times, made me become suddenly aware of the ‘misery’ around me. Sweaty people, almost encroaching on my fundamental right to exist, and all the inhuman endurance feats i was made to go through, to earn, what I can shamefully call a salary…where was all this going? why is it that I was so pathetically commensurated while the rest of the world seemed to breeze through in luxury cars? Why was my talent and capability so perennially undermined and my intellect so ungratifying?

When this seemingly wanton brownian motion of my thoughts was rising to an unnecessary frenzy, the train slowed down at the platform and he walked in. Or i should rather say, he crawled in. He was neatly dressed, a crisply ironed shirt, belted trousers and a metallic wrist-watch to match. Only that his trousers were only knee length; because his legs were knee length themselves. Both legs, cleanly amputated at the knee.

He wore specially made shoes which supported him below his knees, and were bound to his thighs. As the whole compartment eyed this spectacle with a mix of surprise and indifference, I woke up from my inconsequential daydream to notice a being who presented such a positive picture. His confidence, his professionalism and his grit almost emanated from his small frame, making me feel guilty, or rather stupid, for complaining, for feeling small, and for contracting my soul into a shell of my needs and my ego.

It was when he neatly folded his umbrella into his bag and pulled out the Times for a morning read, I added a new pointer to the list of things this city has taught me: You are never too small to aspire, enjoy and live life to its fullest, and you are never too big to learn from life itself, everyday…