Sitting on the road clumsily. Back against the wall. For a very busy executive with sales responsibility of a good chunk of the country such sights are never registered. There are just too many important discussions and issues to be resolved at any given point in time. But then like the iconic hand-drawn rickshaw the city has its own atmosphere.... own personality ...and its own way of nudging you in directions where no other city can take you....
I did notice. In the split second between the reflex action to avoid collision/contact and the shock at finding an unlikely obstacle on a footpath. I obviously moved on with the initial irritation towards the tea-shop. But then the subconscious mind has its way of knocking on your door to absorb sights which are out of the ordinary.
Sitting on the road clumsily. Back against the wall. He was a beggar. An old beggar with broken dark glasses in his hand and unwavering eyesight to inform us of his blindness. She was sitting beside him. In all probability his wife ... or companion. He had a bandage around one of the eyes. Rest of it was normal. Ragged lungi and torn vest. The lady in ragged saree. Nothing which is worth a second look in streets of a big city. Nothing which I had not seen before and ignored a thousand times before.
It was obviously surprising when I noticed after quite some time that I was not being able to take away my eyes off the couple. And as I kept watching a strange mix of emotions was engulfing me from all sides.
All the while my colleague kept chatting about some job related issue which I did not hear. The lady in her on the road talking to her man. Wiping off his sweat. Holding his hand with almost maternal accustom. Animatedly gesticulating while speaking about myriad things of the world. The man sitting back in complete submission and trust. Smiling occasionally and shaking his head to her words. Sitting on the road in the most awkward place on a crowded footpath, they were oblivious to the rest of the world. They were visibly and completely engrossed in each other. The blind beggar in torn clothes and his wife in the ragged saree.
Do not get me wrong. I am not trying to write a document for missionaries of charity here. It was not about the condition in which these two lovers were in, in their past-middle age. For all I know they could have been sitting in a five star hotel in the most expensive of clothes. What pierced me that day was the love which spilled out of their beings. Love not made up by sensuality of youth, finesse of exotic mood-settings, worship of beauty....a love which survived and flourished in spite of having none of these. A strength of a bond which did not weather any of the storms which would have hit upon those two. It simply did not acknowledge.
After having loved a woman for more than a decade and after having come from one of the most loving family that I came from, I can say it was the first time I witnessed such love. Was it pure? Intense? Profound? Frankly I do not know. I do not care to. It was something which a very few had the fortune of experience. I was blessed to have witnessed it in my life time.
The rest of my working day was expectedly ruined. I sat and looked at my laptop screen restlessly. Went to the toilet a few times to release myself. Even after 2-3 rounds of tears the turbulence in my heart stayed. In fact after more than a year it still nudges me from time to time. While today I make sense of it to some extent, that day it was madness for me. As I simply did not understand what had just happened and why I was reacting the way I was.
In the following weeks I would keep seeing the couple. They would come to the footpath near my office post a day of begging in the summer sun. They bought their lunch from the same tea shop which I and my colleagues frequented. They continued to be engrossed in themselves in pure bliss every time I saw them.
A certain protective urge started engulfing me over the weeks. I wanted to reach out to them. Take care of them. Put them in a sanatorium. I would keep worrying about them. What would happen to the man if the lady was not there? What would the lady do without her blind ragged lover? However every time I encountered them I had the urge to run away. A strange feeling of shame, sense of inferiority. That perplexed me. And frankly this sense prevented me from doing any of the stuff I wanted to do for them.
The last time I saw them, the lady finally approached me. I was terrified with a sense of guilt and that feeling when you have got caught trying or steal the cake. However nothing of the imagined stuff happened in the encounter. She quietly came and begged. Begged for a few paise. Begged in a dignified and yet pleading manner. For one moment there was a mild turbulence in me and all the emotions of the past few weeks overcame me. I looked at her for a brief second. Then took out my wallet and gave her all the notes that were there in it. She expressed surprise and then in a serene and calm voice blessed me and went off. That day I had gone to the atm. it would have been a few thousand bucks in there. But her reaction to the same was as stoic and calm as one could imagine. I never saw them again. A few weeks later our office shifted and we stopped going to this place. A few months later I moved out of the city.
Life has its ways of telling us stories perhaps. This perhaps was a story which needed to be told to me. The story of love in its purest form. Of bliss which love brings to us.
Every time I remember that moment when I saw them. The fragile man with all his vulnerability resting his tired back on that wall. His head dipped a bit. An expression of complete trust and submission. And the lady. With her smile- motherly, taunting, childish.... an expression of complete happiness in company of a broken blind person. That was love for me. Stripped of all the paraphernalia of the world. Every time I think of them I keep praying to the guy above to bless them with all his blessings.
But then perhaps he already has done that. Long ago....
I did notice. In the split second between the reflex action to avoid collision/contact and the shock at finding an unlikely obstacle on a footpath. I obviously moved on with the initial irritation towards the tea-shop. But then the subconscious mind has its way of knocking on your door to absorb sights which are out of the ordinary.
Sitting on the road clumsily. Back against the wall. He was a beggar. An old beggar with broken dark glasses in his hand and unwavering eyesight to inform us of his blindness. She was sitting beside him. In all probability his wife ... or companion. He had a bandage around one of the eyes. Rest of it was normal. Ragged lungi and torn vest. The lady in ragged saree. Nothing which is worth a second look in streets of a big city. Nothing which I had not seen before and ignored a thousand times before.
It was obviously surprising when I noticed after quite some time that I was not being able to take away my eyes off the couple. And as I kept watching a strange mix of emotions was engulfing me from all sides.
All the while my colleague kept chatting about some job related issue which I did not hear. The lady in her on the road talking to her man. Wiping off his sweat. Holding his hand with almost maternal accustom. Animatedly gesticulating while speaking about myriad things of the world. The man sitting back in complete submission and trust. Smiling occasionally and shaking his head to her words. Sitting on the road in the most awkward place on a crowded footpath, they were oblivious to the rest of the world. They were visibly and completely engrossed in each other. The blind beggar in torn clothes and his wife in the ragged saree.
Do not get me wrong. I am not trying to write a document for missionaries of charity here. It was not about the condition in which these two lovers were in, in their past-middle age. For all I know they could have been sitting in a five star hotel in the most expensive of clothes. What pierced me that day was the love which spilled out of their beings. Love not made up by sensuality of youth, finesse of exotic mood-settings, worship of beauty....a love which survived and flourished in spite of having none of these. A strength of a bond which did not weather any of the storms which would have hit upon those two. It simply did not acknowledge.
After having loved a woman for more than a decade and after having come from one of the most loving family that I came from, I can say it was the first time I witnessed such love. Was it pure? Intense? Profound? Frankly I do not know. I do not care to. It was something which a very few had the fortune of experience. I was blessed to have witnessed it in my life time.
The rest of my working day was expectedly ruined. I sat and looked at my laptop screen restlessly. Went to the toilet a few times to release myself. Even after 2-3 rounds of tears the turbulence in my heart stayed. In fact after more than a year it still nudges me from time to time. While today I make sense of it to some extent, that day it was madness for me. As I simply did not understand what had just happened and why I was reacting the way I was.
In the following weeks I would keep seeing the couple. They would come to the footpath near my office post a day of begging in the summer sun. They bought their lunch from the same tea shop which I and my colleagues frequented. They continued to be engrossed in themselves in pure bliss every time I saw them.
A certain protective urge started engulfing me over the weeks. I wanted to reach out to them. Take care of them. Put them in a sanatorium. I would keep worrying about them. What would happen to the man if the lady was not there? What would the lady do without her blind ragged lover? However every time I encountered them I had the urge to run away. A strange feeling of shame, sense of inferiority. That perplexed me. And frankly this sense prevented me from doing any of the stuff I wanted to do for them.
The last time I saw them, the lady finally approached me. I was terrified with a sense of guilt and that feeling when you have got caught trying or steal the cake. However nothing of the imagined stuff happened in the encounter. She quietly came and begged. Begged for a few paise. Begged in a dignified and yet pleading manner. For one moment there was a mild turbulence in me and all the emotions of the past few weeks overcame me. I looked at her for a brief second. Then took out my wallet and gave her all the notes that were there in it. She expressed surprise and then in a serene and calm voice blessed me and went off. That day I had gone to the atm. it would have been a few thousand bucks in there. But her reaction to the same was as stoic and calm as one could imagine. I never saw them again. A few weeks later our office shifted and we stopped going to this place. A few months later I moved out of the city.
Life has its ways of telling us stories perhaps. This perhaps was a story which needed to be told to me. The story of love in its purest form. Of bliss which love brings to us.
Every time I remember that moment when I saw them. The fragile man with all his vulnerability resting his tired back on that wall. His head dipped a bit. An expression of complete trust and submission. And the lady. With her smile- motherly, taunting, childish.... an expression of complete happiness in company of a broken blind person. That was love for me. Stripped of all the paraphernalia of the world. Every time I think of them I keep praying to the guy above to bless them with all his blessings.
But then perhaps he already has done that. Long ago....
1 comment:
touching. Powerful.
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