Thand ki Ek Raat-One Night of a Security Guard

It was a last weekend of December when Ram Lal enters in a society for his night shift.

Wrapped in an insufficient Warm clothes, relieve the guards of morning shift. He was fully prepared, to be active & awakened for the whole night .

It was a chilled & windy night of Delhi.Looked for his post,collect his whistles ,wooden bar  and Eveready commander Torch which are his safety gears for the night. He settled for the night to stand on post and guard the society for any un towards Incident/accident during the entire night.

Difficult for Ram Lal as the night was getting further darker and the silence was becoming more prominent. Sounds of barking dogs
at the other corner of the roadside were bothersome for him as he gets afraid of any unpleasant happening to the society hence gets up to take a round of society.

The "thuk thuk" sound of his wooden bar on the road while patrolling within the campus every  hour gives a sign of satisfaction for residents who get assured of that RAMLAL is awakened.

Everyone in the campus was sleeping because Ramlal was awakened and roaming all night within our campus guarding our boundary.

No one like to remain out in the night unless he/she is forced to.Ramlal was enjoying his night duty because the amenities at Guardroom is much better than his house moreover he was not being accommodated there in one room Flat in night for his young married son.He happily sleep in the daytime when his son moves out for livelihood and daughter in law busy for home care in day time.

He sometimes feel sleepy seating at the gate ,tired in night when a car horn for opening the door,the Resident drove in staring  him for the delay in getting up and opening the door.He is afraid of such look of the inmates.

Working in Night is against the nature.One always naturally induce sleep.He gets himself refreshed by making & taking Tea in night.

It is really a tough duty for lesser wage (half of the Govt.fixed charges) with no safety Equipments and warm clothes.Ideally  the employer should provide him a better warm jackets,shoes,blankets and Torch etc with an incentives time to time for his sense of belongingness to the people of society.Such exploitation is not expected from a society like ours.If not money we can always give a affectionate look to them after all he was awakened whole night when we were within the comfort of our quilt.

Today he has not reported and someone else was there on the post.On further enquiry it was found that he was not well and lying in high fever.Neither employer nor the society have any arrangements of medical help for such persons who are working with us.There meagre savings are spent in a moment when they fall sick.

Ram Lal is like Army personal on LOC but unlike them ,they don't get any award or reward but being forgotten in a wink of eye.

Don't be selfish,think millions of people like Ram Lal who are working in odd hour for us.We can always atleast spare  them our SMILE & LOVE which does not cost anything.

-pramodara