The Army Dude!

This is a true incident that happened recently at the bus stop with me.

So I met this old dude at the bus stop the other day who said he was 93 years old!
Seriously he did not look that old for the way he spoke or walked never gave me the impression he was that old!

Anyway, this person came up to me asking for alms and i gave him some money and hoped he would move on but he stayed. All of a sudden he spoke and said 'God bless you my Child' and I gave him a smile hoping he would walk away but he stayed and started a conversation by asking me what i did and other stuff any stranger might ask. So he gave me his hand and said 'My name is Y and I’m a retired professor you know, i did M.A in Literature'. then suddenly he said 'i was a neurologist know where to hit a person so as to give him a fatal blow!' that statement of his was quite intimidating!

Then he went on to tell me that he was in the Army and now i could smell his breath which was intoxicated. So i asked him “ are you drunk?” he said “yes I am drunk. I even have a bottle with me and he showed me the bottle he carried with him” it was like 4pm in the evening and this 93 year old ex army personnel was drunk and was trying to have a conversation with me!

So i asked him to step away and talk as i was irritated by his breath. he then asked me not to touch alcohol ever else i'd become enslaved to it! (Advice can come from anywhere, anyone, even from a stranger asking for alms!).He went on to tell me that it was nice of me to give him some money and he then asked me again what i was doing and if i was a student.
This part was recurring again and again, the ‘what do you do’ part. He seemed to have amnesia or something I guess.



The dude was drunk and he could hardly stand still and yet he could speak of all this!
i could not help but ask him 'are you ok? Will you manage?'
His reply was so convincing that i was assured that he was doing well. He said 'Of course my boy! Of course i am ok! My boy, I’ve been drinking from the past 75 years and this is an army man standing in front of you!' He got his right hand forward for a hand shake and asked me to feel his strength (and he felt pretty much strong for an old dude like him)

He told me that most of the youth today are weak and no way closer to what people of his age used to be during our age and i could not help but nod convincingly. He then said he could not move his left hand freely owing to a bullet wound and showed me a bullet wound below his chin.

Again he asked me what i did which i did share with him again and now i introduced myself as Abdul and he said his name was Y (Intentionally name kept private). He asked me if i was Muslim and when i said yes and it resulted in the following statement from the old dude- 'The Biryani you make on EID is the best!' this brought about a smile on my face. I thought- atleast someone's happy with something Muslims do!


He went on to tell me that he would get me a job in 'Royal Enfield' or maybe 'Ford' and that he knew people there! i was like 'thank you sir but i'd like to do that myself' and he said' I Really like you my boy!' and he went on to tell me his address! but he denied giving me his phone number which i did not ask for in the first place!
He cited a reason for not revealing his phone number-' there are some personal reasons for that’ he said.


Throughout our conversation he was asking me if he was talking any bull shit, if anything he spoke did not make sense and i had to agree that what he spoke made a lot of sense.


I was now able to notice many people at the bus stop staring at us. The conversation was now 25 minutes long and I was starting to feel uneasy..
He mentioned his address again and asked me if I would remember it and i read out the address to him just to prove I remembered his address. Now i felt it was high time i made a move and i said i had to leave as my bus had arrived, which was a lie.

It was one of those dreaded days when the bus you want to travel in never shows up! But i had to leave and i took the alternate bus and then changed to another from a different stop.

It was a really strange conversation at the end of which i felt that i did not treat the person like a stranger and now i wonder if he really wanted me to come visit him at his place...

I went on to share the incident with my mother and I wondered if she felt bad to know that I spoke to a stranger for she had once asked me not to talk to strangers! :D