A few good people...

Yesterday,two of my colleagues and I were a bit late in getting out of office (heck, it was issue closing time). We called for two cabs – one for them, another for me, as we lived in different parts of the city. When informed that the cabs had arrived, we clambered down the stairs (one of us insisting on making ghostly sounds in the dark) and headed to the parking lot.

Only to discover that only my colleagues’ cab had turned up. Mine had got delayed. It was almost ten in the night and a fine drizzle was hitting the street. They had been working longer than I had and were both tired. One of them had a long way to go in particular. I told them I would wait for my cab to turn up. I told them to hop in and get on their way.

Like heck they did.

They waited. For my cab.

Their cab driver kept muttering about getting late. They ignored him and waited, parking me in the front seat for good measure (it was raining, after all). One of them kept calling the cab agency to make sure that they were sending something for me. Another sat around wishing for a device that would blow up whenever she was angry (yes, she does have a penchant for saying stuff that is out of context). When not calling, the first would keep reminding me to have a good yell at my cab driver when he did turn up. We talked about work, why people called at the oddest times, and about how nice Connaught Place looked at night.

After about twenty minutes, we were told that my cab driver was on his way. They could have left then. They didn’t. They waited. And kept chattering away merrily.

Almost forty minutes later, my cab turned up. And they finally waved me a cheery goodbye. They could have left much earlier and been home and dry. But they chose to wait for a colleague who would otherwise have been left alone in the rain.

There are still good people in Delhi.

I know.

I work with two of them.