One of the one percent in 13 million.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The woman was walking along the lane, carrying a large bouquet of multi-coloured flowers. Her right hand was holding the flowers somewhat carelessly; the bouquet was facing downwards. The other hand had the mobile phone, glued to the ear. The flowers were frequently falling down on the pave, one or two at a time. After the woman disappeared from sight, young Aamir picked up each of the flowers from the ground.

This was the only eventful part of his afternoon, in Aamir’s telling, here on central Delhi’s Chelmsford Road. He then used those second-hand flowers to decorate his rickshaw. The rickshaw is parked on the curb, as if on an exhibit.

“These are real flowers… smell them,” he says.

Aamir has been a rickshaw puller for six years. A native of West Bengal, his Delhi home is Chelmsford Road, he says, explaining that he sleeps at night on the roadside.

“It is getting very cold,” he observes. A week ago, one “ameer admi” drove past the pave where Aamir was lying at night, distributing blankets to the homeless. “I too got one.”

This freezing afternoon, Aamir is in a black sports jacket, with a blue woollen underneath. A shawl wrapped on his head resembles a village elder’s turban. Everything around is cold and grey except for the warm flashes of colours speckled across Aamir’s rickshaw. The flowers are arranged around the center of the handle bar, on either side of the passenger’s seat, on the side-bars, and two flowers—yellow and white—are atop the roof.

Other than this chance engagement with the flowers, Aamir’s day was unfolding as it usually does. He woke up at seven in the morning, had chai-and-toast at a roadside eatery, after which he launched into his workday. He operates only along Chelmsford Road, where he easily finds the day’s customers, since the broad avenue hosts the super-busy New Delhi railway station.

Post-lunch, Aamir took out half an hour from his work to decorate the rickshaw with the flowers, using the long green stalks of the flowers as the tying thread. “This flower is lal soorajmukhi, this one is peela soorajmukhi, this one is…. They all are soorajmukhi but have different colours.”

Sitting on the passenger’s seat to pose for a portrait, he says: “I will now get back on the road, will have dinner at eight… these flowers will fall whenever they want to.”

[This is the 603rd portrait of Mission Delhi project]