The couple got on the tram at the stop called, for short, Bitwy Warszawskiej 1920 roku.1 The woman first struggled, then lurched – it was hard to tell whether voluntarily or not – forward. Somehow she managed not to fall down and reach a cold handrail, by which she stalled, one of her legs positioned in an awkward way. The man was much stabler on his feet; he calmly moved behind his missus, unperturbed by her antics, to which he must have been used. They looked middle-class and, obviously, fuddy-duddy, which was highlighted by their long, dark fur coats that were in perfect condition despite being, I could bet, half a century old. Their warm hats brought back a hazy childhood memory - Edward Gierek kissing Leonid Brezhnev.
The few seats that were free a moment before had just been taken by one young and two middle-aged men, who quickly delved into their (respective) books. With hopeful anxiety I waited for someone to notice the old couple and offer a seat, especially to the woman. But it wasn’t to happen.
My first impulse was to intervene2 , but for some reason I nipped it in the bud. The picture was so strange and cruel, it made me feel that some no-nonsense Karma must be involved – by being so painfully insensitive, the younger ones were clearly paying a heavy price for past offences against the Supreme & Serene Law of the Universe. Who was I to think of getting mixed up in the eternal and, hopefully, wise cycle of cause and effect?, I asked myself. Had I not enough on my hands trying to abolish democracy (locally) and restore Dualism (universally)? So I just stood there, at the back of the tram, a passive observer of life’s precious little pangs of moral metaphysics, trying to be above their call to action.3
I took a closer look at the couple. The woman’s eyes – I noticed when she turned for a second to her husband – were glassy and had an unsettling absent feel to them; they were the eyes that some old people specialise in – the type that makes it hard to tell whether their owner is there and then with you or somewhere else, 20 years ago.
The man’s face was stern and - apart from that - said nothing, but it seemed to have a significant uncompassionate potential in it and it; it was the kind of face, I guess, that people get when they have seen too much - or have done too much4 . Both of them might have seen the Warsaw Uprising, or even taken part in it; the man, judging by his looks, on the German side.
The tram started again and the woman swayed dangerously. I was, once again, supressing my urge to act and remain a cold, perhaps even guilty, observer … when my humble – and rightly so – intellect kicked in, at long last.
I shoved Karma, metaphysics and character analysis aside to see that what I witnessed was information deficit in action: the old couple were standing, as I did, at the very end of the carriage and simply no one had registered them. A little bit of straightforward communication was needed, which is what I specialise in.
So I swung into action. I made a few quick steps forward and I addressed no one and everyone in particular: “Excuse me, “ (my voice sounded a bit louder and more reproaching than originally planned), “could someone please give up their seat to this lady – she finds it difficult to stand.” No head turned. Except the lady’s.
“Why?”, she asked sharply. Her nearly transparent eyes fixed on me intensely. Wherever or whenever she’d been a moment ago, she was now all here. “I’m perfectly fine standing." The words had an unpleasant ring to them and I expected “mind your own business!” to follow up, but for whatever reason it didn’t.
While I was retreating, embarrassed, the man leaned towards his wife and asked loudly and – true to his face – brusquely. “What was he after?” The woman didn’t turn. “Never mind”, she replied quietly, evidently not expecting him to hear it. “What?”, he said.
At that moment, the tram made a delicate turn as it approached Narutowicza Sq, the movement made the woman lose her balance again, but somehow she held her ground. I smiled.
But the punch line came with two young Indian or Bangladeshi guys who got on at the next stop and stood right next to me. They looked around the tram with interest – they must have been new to our country. They immediately noticed the couple and one could see disapproval in their faces. They gave me a glance as if enquiring: “Is this how you treat old folks over here?”. The reply they saw in my face was the smile, which I hadn’t managed to remove in time. They turned their eyes away from me. Clearly, I was an unpleasant sight.
The tram began to slow down before the next stop and the couple made their way towards the door. Suddenly, the woman misstepped and nearly fell over. I couldn’t help but laugh. The Indian guys looked at me with bewilderment.
And I knew right away what they’ll write back home in their first letter from Poland.
“Dear Mom ,
Warsaw is an interesting place. It’s quite ugly and the weather’s a bit on the cold side, but the people here are very .... well, the people here are strange: they they let the old ones live longer than we do, but make them stand on trams and buses. The reason may be that they seem to enjoy watching them trip.
I'll write more soon.
Your Rajiv”
1With all due respect – I love/hate Polish history like all patriots, but aren’t we going over the top and making our lives a bit too hard for the sake of cramming too much of the good stuff into steet names? Some time ago I heard of a proposal to change the name of Al. Jana Pawła II. I thought: “JPII – I can live with that". Then I learnt that the change was to be to ...“Al. Papieża Jana Pawła II”.
Or perhaps I’m wrong – and giving more details of events and people in place names does something good to people subliminally, apart from stretching their patience ultraliminally? But then, why not go the whole hog and instead of ‘Bitwy Warszawskiej 1920 r.’ have “Ul. Bitwy Warszawskiej 1920 r. Określanej Jako Jedna z 18 Najważniejszych Bitw w Historii, Podczas Której Wojsko Polskie Zatrzymało Grożącą Całej Europie Nawałnicę Bolszewicką"?
2 Perhaps a wrong word here: can you intervene in something that isn’t happening? (Or maybe something was happening without any sign of it?)
3 What if the calls are the work of mindless Nature and – as I’ve suggested before; probably not originally – I am at my most human, when I suppress them?
4 Which could be plain rubbish - perhaps he simply struggled to achieve any facial expression at all (and maybe when he did achieve it, the poor chap could hardly control what it was)?
