A brief interlude

He is on his way back from work. Seated on his loyal two wheeler, his black bag slung across his shoulder, helmet on head, he is the Anonymous Techie in a metro. Not that he minds it. Life has been good to him. So what if traffic snarls make him reach home at 8 pm? He makes use of the traveling and waiting time at signals to retrospect, to analyse and to plan for the morrow. Logic and efficiency are his hallmarks.

His wife is a PR executive in a good firm. He wanted a working wife and his parents found one for him, the best in fact. Their married life is one smooth run, with a few stops here and there like at traffic signals. The working world has taught them to accept hitches and gloss over incorrigibles. When she is not home, he cooks and vice versa; or it is Subway sandwich or Dominos Pizza. All runs by mutual consent. When he is tired he just hits the sack. When she is tired, it is ditto. Their lives are so busy neither questions the purpose of this union nor its destination. Kids? NOOOOOOOO. A houseful of gadgets, yes of course. Traveling together, very occasionally, socializing, lesser still. After all the PR Madam is up to her neck in people and she only wants is a bit of quiet at home.

They own a little flat. Why little you may wonder when they are rolling in money. They are just biding their time. They plan to sell this one off and acquire a bigger flat in due course. With a 100% profit of course. The gadgets are all in place but still a smart, automated home is their current dream, when they have the time to dream jointly or share their individual dream. Neither is against material comforts. The more the better.

He parks his vehicle in the parking lot, takes off his helmet and bag, gets into the lift and reaches the 1st floor. Opens the door of a darkened house. Braces himself to don the apron.

It is morning. She has an important recruitment drive so has left early. He gets up, makes his tea and goes to the balcony to catch a glimpse of the world around. There are buildings to the left and to the right; people having tea, reading their papers and doing the usual things. The usual and the routine are so comforting he thinks. It looks unlikely that a suicide bomber will blow himself up in such a setting. Everyone wants a certain order in life and for the order to go on uninterrupted for as long as possible. When he glances in front he notices a change. The vacant plot facing the balcony has suddenly sprung to life. A builder’s coveting nose has smelt potential there. He has nothing against development. If the structure to come blocks sunlight to his flat he can’t be bothered. He rarely sees the sun rise or set anyways.

In two days time, a small hut with a thatched roof has sprung up. The watchman’s temporary shelter. He glosses over the change like reading the classified section of the paper.

In four days he notices something. The hut has a square rusted tin near the door. An outdated, out of the world, dented tin container which some day had held 20 kgs of cooking oil. It is filled with soil and a tulsi seedling is trying to find a foothold in the world. A small extinct earthen lamp is near the plant. He forgets it in the realities of his virtual world.

On a Sunday morning, he is feeling particularly relaxed. His wife is on a tour. He makes himself an extra strong cup of tea, tucks the bulky Sunday paper under his arm and makes it to the balcony. Settles down into a beanbag, not before casting a glance in front. The plant has grown, just by a wee centimeter or so. Looks like a well cared for, recently breast-fed infant. He smiles at his own imagery.

Now he looks forward to Sunday mornings. If alone, better. From his perch, he likes to see the Tulsi grow. Now it is about 6 inches tall. The dented tin container is still there, its soil always wet, its surroundings clean. The earthen lamp is there too and now he wishes he could see it lit. Just one of those unformed, passing thoughts.

On Saturday evening, after enjoying a day of total relaxation, lots of internet activity, a spot of interaction with the wife mostly in their joint culinary efforts, he suddenly remembers the plant. So instead of closing the balcony door at 6, he leaves it ajar. A phone call later when he comes back, the earthen lamp is lit before the plant. He even senses the mild fragrance of incense. He is no more the same.

He goes back in time, or rather is pulled back in time. To his student days in Mumbai. Hailing from a small town, he is awe struck by all that the city has to offer. But he is particularly fascinated when passing kilometers of slum bordering the main road. From his seat in the bus, he watches the huts teeming with life and bustling with activity. Industrious men and women with their small businesses in the available space. Dads and grandpas cuddling babies. Stray dogs living in harmony with the teeming population. A storey added to an already doubtful structure. Women washing the family clothes. Women haggling with vendors. What touches a chord in him however is the little attempts at greenery. Their roofs may be leaking, dirty linen may be hanging on the door or whatever goes for a door, but some houses have reserved space, the area of a broken plastic bucket or tub to plant a little something in it. He wonders why the sight is so moving. Goes on the same route day after day to look more and analyse his feelings. He comes to the conclusion that it is that extra dimension of these poor people which moves him. A well cared for plant in the middle of poverty is for him a powerful symbol. Of what….he strives to define. The capacity to look beyond misery, the capacity to sanctify life, the capacity to care. If a plant can get so much care, it suggests, these human beings must also care for each other. The famous indifference and anonymity of the metro is reserved for high rises and the affluent.

The sight of the slum and the feelings it evokes in him are cathartic. They help him feel more at home in the city. They also give birth to a poet, a painter, and a thinker. Pencil sketches of infants being bathed in the middle of the pavement, canvasses of creepers decorating doorways, poems on togetherness in poverty. The first year in the city has brought out the best in him. He feels energetic- not like his buddies who drink away their week ends by way of fun - but in a different way. A bus ride on this road with the slums always does something to him.

All that is history. A phase in evolution. He shifts residence, now takes the electric train to college. Other distractions come his way. Competition, activities in college, girls….the paintings and poems are put away in a plastic bag in the loft. His flatmates do not even know of his talents. Then it is graduation and the haloed entry into the adult world of money, work and marriage, a point of no return-to anywhere-he feels at times. Cosily ensconced in his well programmed programming world of logic, he is now a thorough metro being.

The tulsi plant, gently swaying in the breeze, has unensconsed him, just a bit. It may not be the plant per se, he deduces, but the assumption that a poor man/woman has once more looked beyond survival to beautify Life and sanctify it. The tulsi plant gently leads him to look within himself. But within him is too crammed: with programs, logic, projects, adjustments and deadlines. No moving space. He closes the balcony door.

But now, door closed or open, his mind is on the plant and all that it represents. Having hashed and rehashed the significance of it for himself, he now wants to go beyond. so he imagines the person who waters the plant and lights the lamp. Not a man for sure. The watchman’s wife maybe, who finds the means to spare some of the oil she buys for the family. He has not seen the watchman closely and so cannot determine the woman’s age. Never mind; the logical mind visualises her – for once without proof - as a young, fulsome woman. Draped in a simple cotton sari, lush, black wavy hair, a tiny nose stud and a perfectly round red bindi, ever so graceful, in her thoughts, her beliefs and her devotion. She must be a woman of substance and strength. The temporariness of her situation has not prevented her from practicing what her upbringing has ingrained in her. The act of lighting the lamp must leave her mind so cleansed of bad thoughts (as if she was EVER capable of it). She must be a dutiful wife, cooking for the husband (no, she does not deserve the additional burden of kids), whatever simple fare they can afford without having to pawn any meager belongings. She may be working as a domestic help maybe in his own building. She is honest, mindful of the employers’ comforts, keeps her time, honors her commitments and does not covet material possessions she sees in the workplace. Briefly said, she is Pure.

The Tulsi is now a full grown shrub, laden with a profusion of delicate flowers. It has weathered uncertainty and is now firmly holding its ground, literally. His tryst with the plant is similar. It grew, kindled his thoughts and flowered. But what now? The excitement of seeing the plant grow has gone. If anything is growing, it is the developer’s dream construction and his bank balance. The building is up on stilts and workers are busy, carting material and constructing. Maybe the watchman’s wife is among them too. An ordinary, frustrated old hag with aching limbs, forever groaning. Beating her sickly kids. Cursing her husband, not cooking for him.

Nooo, he stops this line of thought. He stops everything. The brief interlude into another world was too good to develop further. A glimpse into himself has been reassuring though. He still has observation, he still has imagination, he has his heart in the right place (though cramped), and who knows…maybe one day, the other He would trounce the techie and reclaim his space.