Death moves about at random, without
discriminating between the innocent and the evil, the poor and the rich. The
only difference is that the poor usually handle it better.
I heard today that the vegetable vendor
had died. The old man would always be in the middle of the grocery market of my
locality, selling his fresh green vegetables and if not surrounded by the
customers then always busy sprinkling water on the green vegetables so that
they stay fresh and attract as many customers as possible.
He’d been there for as long as I
remember, and he could be seen at almost any hour of the evening or night,
until all the stock was sold. Summer or winter, he stayed close to the vegetables
and water bottle to sprinkle water on them.
He was probably quite tall, but I never
saw him standing up. One judged his height from his long, loose limbs. He was
very thin, and the turban always and perfectly fixed on his head was the sign
of his experience in life and so about his old age.
His vegetables were always fresh and
always the season’s most wanted. They were not only popular with the old ladies
who would not be able to bend to choose the best among the available, as all
the Indian ladies do while doing grocery shopping. But they were equally
popular with the young females, like me, who are actually raw, when it comes to
choosing the best vegetables. Actually that man use to treat all of them,
rather us, equally and try to give the best of the lot to all of us. And the
best part was that no one have ever bargained with him on the price because
they were the most reasonable and also fixed. This was rarely the case with any
other vendor in the whole grocery market. On winter evenings, or misty monsoon
days, or summery sunny evening, there was always a demand for his vegetables.
No one knows his name. No one ever
thought of asking him for it. One just took him for granted. He was fixed as a
landmark as the clock tower or a Banyan tree that is there near to the bus stop
of my locality. The tree is always being lopped; the clock often stopped. But
the vegetable vendor seems less perishable than the tree, more dependable than
the clock.
I don’t know if he had family or not,
but in the way all the locality was his family, because he was in continuous
contact with people. And yet he was a remote sort of being; always polite, even
to children, but never familiar.
Did he enjoy being alive? I wonder now.
He was always smiling, but I doubt if he was a joyful person; but then, neither
was he miserable. I should think he was a genuine stoic, one of those who do
not attach overmuch importance to themselves, who are emotionally uninvolved,
content with their limitations, their dark corners. I wanted to get to know the
old man better, to sound him out on the immense questions involved in selling
the vegetables all his life; but it’s too late now.
Today his dark corner, which use to be
the green and the most crowded corner of the market earlier, was deserted; the
old man had vanished. ‘He died in his sleep’ said the neighboring vendor. ‘He
was old’. Very old. Sufficient reason to die. May the soul of the stranger, yet
so close, rests in peace.
But the corner is very empty, very
dark, and I know that whenever I pass it I will be haunted by vision of the old
vegetable vendor, troubled by the questions I failed to ask.
That is why, the memories are like the
sky full of stars, so beautiful yet unreachable. We can look at them and smile
but couldn’t complete the urge to get closer to them. May be that’s what the
memories hold. The power to put the heart in craving.
