He is gone !

The one thing I absolutely hate is getting stuck in a traffic jam. After living in KL with its bumper to bumper traffic, I shouldn’t crib about it. But I only have ‘x’ amount of hours to get everything done and the last thing I want is to sit idle in a traffic jam, when I have tons of emails to go through, kids to pick up from their various activities, dinner to cook etc etc. How much ever I try to beat the traffic, there is a roundabout 11 km from my home that always slows down the traffic and every single day, I get stuck in a traffic jam. And the only thing I could do is to look around ( vayumnottam). Often traffic comes to a standstill about two km from the roundabout and the first thing you see is an empty lot with concrete floor. The lot is secured with really tall metal fence. I think there  must have been a house there at one time and perhaps they are waiting to rezone it for commercial purpose. But the most interesting thing is that some kids have managed to scale the tall metal fence, there are plenty of graffiti on the concrete floors and pillars and new ones keep popping up regularly.Then there is a church by the side of the road. Yesterday there were signs  announcing the “pancake” breakfast for Shrove Tuesday. Every month, the church gardener  plants new plants near the signboard. Last month it was pansies. This month it is nasturtium ( orange colour). I always try to guess what he will be planting next. So far my guesses have been 100% wrong. Then there are rows of houses that were built during the 50’s. Most houses are occupied, but the inhabitants were never seen, except for the 3rd house. The first time I remember noticing the house was because of the yellow kolambi flowers ( trumpet flowers). It is one of my mother’s favourite plants and this particular one is laden with flowers. I always think of Amma when I see the flowers.That is where he lives. 3 years ago, when I first saw him, it was about 5.30 pm and I had only been to Australia for few weeks and hated every bit of Australia. It also didn’t help that I had been living in Canada before coming here and very rarely got stuck in a traffic jam. I was on my way back after picking the kids from swimming lessons, winter time, days were getting short and the evenings were getting colder.

I saw ‘this’ old man sitting in the portico in a rickety old chair drinking tea from a pinjaanam. ( the translation skips my mind today..at home,we had white colour pinjanaam cups with blue colour rim when I was little)Sitting next to him was ‘this’ old lady. She was covered from head to toe in various colours of fleece. They were talking to each other, while ignoring the traffic jam outside their house on a very cold winter evening. I did think, “don’t they have anything else to do?”. Of course a part of me was happy to see  that both of them were together and were enjoying their evening, but I had three hungry kids in my car and I just wanted to get back home and perhaps there is a Grinch in all of us!

I am a creature of habit and soon noticed that the old man too was like me. Every evening he sat in his rickety chair and drank his tea ( I assume it was tea) from 5 to 6 pm. Not a minute early and not a minute late. If I didn’t see him, I didn’t even have to look at the clock to know that mani ar ayi kanum ( 6 pm).

The old lady didn’t come and sit outside every evening and since last feb, I haven’t seen her. Somehow, I didn’t miss her presence.

I had often wanted to stop by and say my hi and often I told myself that I am crazy. But each evening as I drive back home,  I do try to reach the roundabout before 6 pm. for surely just as the sun rose each morning, so was my old man sitting there and drinking his tea each evening.

He has reached the tail end of his journey, yet each evening he gave me hope, that in this journey of life it doesn’t matter how much money you have or your title you have earned. What matters is that you live each day..that it is ok to sit outside on the portico and drink a cup of tea,even though life is slipping through your fingers..

I didn’t see him the last few weeks. Yesterday there was a for sale sign outside his house.

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