The Danger of a Single Story

Somnath bhai is happy to see me after many months. While splitting a green coconut, he asks me multiple times if I no longer live here and why have I stopped visiting him. I have grown so used to the little favors, like how he taps individual coconuts to find the best ones for me, with sweet water and a thin layer of flesh. I am very hungry today. I have had no lunch, and this is all that I am going to get. So I stand there for some time as he splits multiple coconuts, some to drink and some to take home. In between, he tells me that he has spent most of his life in the city. He shares that he is 24 years old and has been married for three years now. I find that a little surprising, since he does not look a day past his teens. I jokingly tell him that but he takes my comment seriously. So he starts browsing his phone to show me pictures of his wife. He shares that his wife is a nurse whose family lives in a nearby city. 

What's your wife's name? I ask him. He smiles sheepishly while showing me her pics but says nothing. I drink some more water while he browses some more. He finds a picture of their wedding card where their names are written. He points to her name. 

Don't you take your wife's name? He nods shyly, telling me that he has never taken her name. It's a sign of love and respect. He is blushing profusely, to my utter surprise. So what do you call her?, I ask. He shares that his niece's name is Aarushi, so he calls his wife Aaroo ki chachi (Aaroo's aunt). He reinstates that till date, he has never called her by her name. 

I remind him that there was a time when he was addicted to playing PUBG on his phone all day. One could steal a few coconuts from his rickshaw and he would not even notice. He nods in agreement and tells me that all that has changed now. He is married and takes his responsibilities seriously. True, I no longer see him on his phone. 

As I walk back reflecting on this dissonance, I am reminded of a beautiful TED Talk about the danger of a single story by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. All these years, I had pictured Somnath bhai's life based on the little I saw. He sold coconuts in a trolley rickshaw all day, come rain and sun. His clothes were sometimes dirty. He is really thin. Once, he had accidentally cut his hand while splitting coconuts and the memory of all the blood he lost has scarred me more than him. 

I once asked him if I could donate some old tee shirts to him and he readily agreed. He had told me that he suffered a huge loss during COVID-19, and once, the local goons and a competitor coconut seller ganged up against him, beat him up, and damaged his earlier rickshaw, so he had to change spots where he did business. I had always imagined him having an impoverished life, a difficult life full of lacking. And that single story biased me and made it so hard for me to believe that he could have a life of plenty too, that he could have a family and people he loved. That he could get really shy talking about his wife and had values that made him not take her name. Perhaps they went to the riverside on the weekends and hung out. Perhaps they ate falooda and paani puri at the chowk on special occasions. There was a possibility of such endless stories and all of them could be true. I looked at his clothes closely. He wore a smart shirt buttoned up all the way. Maybe his clothes being dirty and stained had been a figment of my imagination too based on that single story I had of him in my mind. 

sunshine