Alone, yet in a Crowd Author : Dr. K. S. Kang

Alone, yet in a Crowd

Author: Dr. K. S. Kang

Today Kirpal has passed away. Though he was alone in this world yet he was with a crowd of well wishers ad sympathizers. Kirpal lost his grandparents during partition riots even before he came into this world. His grandparents sacrificed their life in order to save the life of their only beloved son Racchpal, who came to India safely and settled in Delhi. When Kirpal went to school he felt envious towards the boys who came with their grandparents to the school or who boasted about their grand parents as he did not see any of his grandparent. As Kirpal grew and matured his parents also passed to the heaven with time and old age. He had come of marriageable age when the 1984 riots broke out and the mob burnt down his house and he was beaten by the mob and he had to run to the station and catch the first available train and came to a historic Gurudwara of Punjab. In this effort he even grew unconscious and people brought him to this historic place of Punjab in horrible condition. Due to the hard work and kind efforts of Bhai Karam Singh and other staff of Gurudwara his physical wounds had healed yet the deep impression left by these riots on his psyche refused to go. Kirpal was totally disillusioned with this world so he decided to spend his rest of life in Gurudwara serving the humanity. He took up the job of keeping the shoes or pilgrims and in the adjoining room he used to spend the nights of his life. His physical needs were not much. The clothes and food was provided by Gurudwara  along with a meagre wage which was more than enough for him. The only strange thing in his room was a number of note books piled up on the shelf in the corner of the room. After he came to this place he had developed the habit of writing the name of people in these note books. Now his whole day was spent in looking after the shoes of the pilgrims who used to come to visit this historical place. He used to greet every pilgrim with a smile and asked his name and the place from where they had come. Then he used to take their shoes, sandals and slippers and cleaned then with a rug and he even used to polish shoes and footwear from the brush and polish bought out from the amount of his wages. He used to clean and polish footwear of every pilgrim daily without any break and without any discrimination. Some of the pilgrims visited this place frequently and regularly so he started knowing them by their names and developed cordial relations with them as if they were his friends and relatives. These regular pilgrims also liked him due to his polite and humble behaviour with everyone without any distinction. Taking their shoes in his hand he used to initiate the conversation with every pilgrim by saying, “ Perhaps I know you, you had come earlier also.” Pilgrim either used to answer his query in affirmative or negative. If answered in affirmative he used to trace his name from the date of his last visit and if answered in negative then he used to write his name, date and the place from where he had come. This activity had become a sort of habit of his life and it kept him connected with the world. Due to his nice nature hs well wishers grew with time. He had made it object of his life  to interact with as many people as possible.

         Last month he fell ill and was taken to hospital by the regular visitors of the shrine and its staff. Pilgrims were shaken up to find another person in his place in the Shoe House of the Gurudwara. Even people of nearby areas came to this place so that they can know about the well being of Kirpal Singh besides paying respects at the historical shrine. The news of his illness spread like a wild fire and people started praying for Kirpal’s recovery with so much passion that even Kirpal own relatives, if alive and existent, would not have prayed with so much sincerity. Some pilgrims brought flowers and fruits for him to the hospital. But his illness had gone beyond the reach of the modern science and technology and Kirpal after a month’s struggle succumbed to his illness and joined his parents and grandparents in the sky. People collected near Gurudwara where Kirpal used to live. When his body was being taken out for cremation it was followed by a long trail of his friends and well wishers who had come to bid farewell to this man who had distributed nothing but smiles to everybody without any discrimination as he cleaned everybody’s shoes without any distinction.