The Delivery Boy

Drowsiness was setting in. I was gradually transcending into ‘The Dreamworld’. And then something startled me and I woke up. Soon I realized, it was a knock on my front door of my 2 BHK flat that had forced me to come back into the real world. I waited for another 10-20 secs for my flatmate to open the door. No one showed up. Finally, I got up cursing him in my mind, and opened the door. It was the delivery boy from the nearby grocery shop at the door. He was standing there with a 20 litre can of drinking water, which probably my flatmate would have ordered over the phone.

The boy had a faint, half-grown moustache, was average-statured and seemed like in his early adolescence. I opened the door wide enough to allow him to come in and place the can in its right place.  He then sat down for sometime in the drawing room. I felt irritated as I was sleepy and was waiting to close the door behind him.

“Bhaiyya, can I have a glass of water? I am tired.” asked the boy.  I was getting restless now and every second I had to keep my eyes open, standing there waiting for the boy to go, irked me even more.

“One minute.” I replied and fetched a glass of water for him. The boy drank water and I expected him to go now. But that was not the case! He was still sitting there and didn’t budge from his place. I was running out of patience and finally the rude person within me blurted out, “I’ll have to close the door now.”

“Oh! Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay!” He exclaimed and started moving out with the empty can. I heaved a sigh of relief and as soon as he moved out of the door, I closed the door behind him and walked to my room as soon as possible and made myself cosy in my bed.

But I hardly got sleep after that. The people-pleaser within me then got into the act. I started asking myself, “Was I being the rightful person here by showing such behaviour towards an innocent kid who was just plain tired and wanted some rest? After all, it was afternoon and carrying the big can of water all the way to the third floor could tire anyone out!”

Getting irked, just because I am feeling sleepy shouldn’t have been the case. There could be so many reasons that the boy is working at this age, when he should ideally be studying. And if God wouldn’t have been kind to me, I would have been in his place delivering big cans of water in hot sunny afternoons to various homes. I cursed myself and felt really bad for my behaviour towards the boy. I promised myself that I would never repeat such a thing and would behave in a better way atleast.

I realized that the tussle between the people-pleaser and the rude protagonist within me will always continue and my mind will always be tempted to support the latter. However, it’ll always depend on me to choose the former as the winner.

The next day, I went to the same shop to buy some eateries and noticed the same boy standing behind the counter. “How are you maalik?” asked the boy.

“I am fine, how are you going about your business?” I replied.

 “Everything is going fine maalik.”

Just then, the owner of the shop arrived and ordered the boy to deliver some items to a customer in the nearby apartment. I paid the money to the owner and glanced at the boy.

He smiled at me innocently.

I smiled back at him in a friendly manner.