Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Near the Bridge Corner

A craggy faced man was sitting on the corner of the main bridge. He was either pondering over life or perhaps just passing his time. His deep-set eyes reminded me of Aurangzeb Alamgir  The 17th century Mughal king of India. I was neither interested in the occult he was speaking nor his crooked beard seemed attractive. In fact, he was a mustachioed man, with a moustache that crossed the right cheek more than the left one. Perhaps, he didn't had time to trim those whiskers, which had subtly convolved with his sideburns. Such facial expressions are more common with Afghans or Iranian, but I think he was neither of them — They don't have such scraggly beards. 

He was sitting with his feet crossed like Siddhartha waiting for Nirvana. I don't know for how long he was sitting there, but his crooked spinal cord had to bear the weight of his flabby stomach that was infinitely curving inwards. His body was thoroughly covered with a conservative, full-length Kameez. Dirty grey strips were the only visible characteristics on his cloths. The greyness was particularly more visible along his bony shoulder lines, while the collar bone was covered by a shabby patch of blue-black checkered stitch.

His hands were empty — emptiness analogous to the emptiness of the universe. A wooden Tasbeeh decorated his seamed, old hands. It circled his left thumb and traversed from the left palm to the space between his index and middle figures. Will this be a blasphemy to place a Tasbeeh in such a position? I don't know, and — probably, even the man didn't know about this. 

His head was covered by a long sheet of bordered white cloth. The hair weren't much visible, but my instinctive feeling is that he was bald. His forehead covered a major part of his face and seemingly hid behind the cloth piece before making a single hair visible to foreign eyes.

A giddy, veiled young lady passed by the old and gave him some coins. One of the coin fell through the gap between the index and middle finger before finally reaching the ground. The coin spun for a few seconds — gradually moving away from the old man — before it lost its momentum. The old man straightened his spinal cord. He tried to reach out for the coin, but suddenly a roaring, shrilling white car passed over the coin, shooting it miles away from the grab of the old man.

The man again said some occults.

He again went in his natural state of achieving Nirvana, and his ad infinitum wait yet again started.