I keep Sundays reserved for outings. No, not those outings that one normally
associates with the word. Every Sunday gives me an opportunity to visit the Reliance
Green store to buy vegetables. Once through with the vegetables, Rani enters
the fish store, while I climb down the stairs and kill time. Not only is the
fish store too crowded, the stench is offensive, and the lone worker has no
sense of urgency.
It was the same this Sunday. I walked down the stairs, which led to an
about four feet wide pavement.
A brown and white dog was peacefully sleeping in a corner. I wonder why
dogs come in such limited shades. They are white, black, or brown, or a
combination of any of these colours. In other words, there cannot be more than
seven ways in which your dog can appear – pure white, pure brown, pure black,
white-brown, white-black, brown-black, or white-brown-black! It is good that
dogs cannot see many colours, and therefore are not aware of this limitation.
The particular dog was rather thickset. By human standards, it was
slightly older than I am. But it was very different from me - it appeared to
have no worry in the world. I went close to the dog. Deep in sleep with eyes
completely closed, it dropped its purplish tongue on the floor and licked it.
The experience was evidently good. It licked again, and then again, without
opening eyes or showing any other sign of being awake. It was the first time
I had ever seen a dog performing this trick. And mind you, my childhood was
spent with many dogs. True, one can learn everyday.
The odour of maida being deep
fried diverted my attention. It emanated from a nearby shack selling cheap
food. The owner sat on a counter, reading newspaper. Two employees doubled
up as chef and maître d'hôtel, handling customers and
cooking implements with the same callousness. At the exact moment they were
busy deep frying puris.
A man, almost transfixed, stood in front of the shack. His clothes were
dirty. The shirt, which might have been white once upon a time; was black and
brown. The trousers were khaki. The hair was tousled up; the beard had not been
attended for days. He was a picture of poverty.
The man moved his right hand into the shirt’s front pocket. I could see
a glimpse of a ten rupee note. He pushed the note back, but did not move. The
sight of puris getting puffed in hot
oil was perhaps too tempting for him. He moved his right hand again, this time
to his hip pocket. I am not sure whether he had a little fortune hidden there
as well. Two minutes passed. The chef-cum-maître d'hôtel looked at him. The man once again thrust his hand in the front
pocket, extracting the ten rupee note.
The money was faithfully deposited in the drawer of the counter. The
owner did not move his eyes up from the newspaper. Some minutes passed. The man
stood waiting, his eyes never leaving the kadai.
More minutes passed. Finally, the chef-cum-maître d'hôtel packed two puris
and some curry in a polythene bag.
If accepting the bag was a pain, transferring it into the other hand was
an ordeal. The destitute had an empty polythene bag in his left hand, and for
some reason did not want to dispense with it. He tried to slip the newly
acquired bag inside this bag, but could not. His left hand, and for that
matter, his left leg was paralysed. He tried again, failing yet again. He had
to try for about five minutes before he could complete the task. Now came the
turn of picking up his stick and another polythene bag from the pavement. It
was obvious that he could not bend like an ordinary person. He punished himself
for several minutes before succeeding in picking up the stick and getting ready
to move.
During the entire effort he never looked anywhere except at the bags or at
the stick. I thought of placing some money in his pocket. I looked back. Rani
was coming down. I looked at the man. He had turned his back towards me, and had
started walking. He stumbled, steadied himself, and resumed walking, very slowly.
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