One of the one percent in 13 million.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The other day this beggar found himself walking along a footpath in Kashmere Gate thinking about lunch when a careless motor-cyclist suddenly smashed into him hard. Without any warning whatsoever.

“I fell down and hit the ground, bleeding,” recalls Sanjay Das,” and my very first thought was to get hold of the biker to pay for injuries… But he ran away.”

At length, two friendly pedestrians helped him to his feet; and Mr Das was then treated outside Gurudwara Seesganj at Chandni Chowk where some Sikh volunteers regularly dress the wounds of the needy for free.

Two days later Mr Das face is still bandaged, with his kurta still smeared with dried blood. “I’ll have to buy a new one, when I can,” he says quietly—his eyes almost hidden behind cotton wads.

He says used to be a railway porter, but that was then. Then there’s a wife and sons in UP, but he has no phone to inform them of his injuries, “and anyway I’ll never tell them.”

But, would it be an idea to return home and stay there until he’s fully fit?

Mr Das doesn’t reply. Instead he raises his hands, supplicating to no one in particular, here in this bustling central Delhi market lane.

[This is the 173rd portrait of Mission Delhi project]

A lonesome man’s bandages

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