‘Nobody cared earlier; now everyone takes care of me’

domestic help ₹15,000 and ₹4,000 for the room.

“Earlier they gave me ₹2,000 notes. Now I get lower denominations as well,” he said.

During his monthly trip this Monday afternoon, bank guard Ram Yadav ushered Lal to a bench in the waiting area for clients. House help Kalawati, who now accompanies Lal to the bank, went to the teller to update the passbook.

The process lasted not more than 10 minutes. Lal had to get up once for the thumb impression on the receipt and pocket his money.

Yadav and Kalawati helped him get onto a cycle-rickshaw to his room, a kilometre away.

“Everyone knows him here. We make sure he faces no problem,” Yadav said, after the war veteran wished him goodbye with folded hands.

Nobody knew him on December 14 last year when he was begging bank officials for “some cash” to pay his domestic help and buy provisions. A photograph capturing his ordeal was published in Hindustan Times that day and Lal became a social media sensation.

Inside his room, not much has changed but it’s tidier now. His belongings — a bed, a trunk, a plastic chair, a bucket, an ashtray, water bottles and two portraits of gods Shiva and Ganesh — occupy the measly space.

Lal shifted to Gurgaon from Pakistan during Partition and his wife died about three decades ago. He served in the army and fought the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

He had his own house till it was sold 15 years ago when his daughter got married.

“His daughter wants to take care of him and is asking him to stay with her. But he doesn’t want to leave this place,” Kalawati said.