The Stranger returns

December 21, 2012. That was the last time I was on here. Seems a lifetime ago, and yes, once again, I plead forgiveness for the inconsistency that plagues me, if not my entire generation. What may seem like the most obvious platform of expression for a writer of some sort has always seemed to elude me and the months seem to creep between the gaps of my blog posts. So here I am, trying again - this time maybe biting off just as much as I can chew. This year, maybe I will just post things here that I write anyway - in the papers, for myself and my friends so that for those of you who want to read it, there will be one place you can go.

Happy New Year, everyone! And here is one of my personal favourites, The Stranger. Things often look longer on blogs than they really are, so bear with me :)

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I sit here, just as I always have. For how many years, you may ask. I cannot claim to have the answer. As far as the mind can remember, I will say. As long as memory can see. Long before those glassed buildings in that corner came up. Definitely far before that child there was even born. I have been here a while, I sigh. Some may even claim ‘forever’. I look back and realise these tags don’t matter to me. Then and now, recent and forever. Do they change me? Impact my life any? The dent is negligible, insignificant, the impact of a dragonfly on the leaves of a century-old banyan tree from the books of yore.

I know what you think, hurrying past me in all your pointed productivity. You don’t have time for loafers like me. You might even pause to curse under your breath. Just look at him, you will say. All hale and hearty yet blanketed by lethargy. To you, I am a statistic; yet another one of the millions unemployed, the economically dependent you pay to support with your hard-earned money. I know you hate me, despise my existence. I know you won’t miss me when I’m gone. But I watch you. Everyday; as you rush from the train to the cafe for a quick cappuccino, from the taxi to the high rise office buildings that hold you captive. I watch you and I know; know more than you ever will give me credit for.

There, that boy over there. It must be 8:55 in the morning. I know no watch nor have the knowledge to read the dials. Yet, everyday, I hear him mutter into the phone, growling at the person on the other end. Every day, I hear how much every minute means to him, not in the sense of experience and emotion but that one dratted number that sends him sprinting up to the fourteenth floor. “I don’t have time for this! It is four minutes to 9 AM and I will start losing money, fast. You can wait.” I often wonder who this nameless stranger is, begging for the tall, suited middle-aged man’s attention. His wife perhaps? Or his girlfriend, the steamy, secret mistress? Or even an old love, a flame that never quite extinguished to a whisper?

Oh, and then, over there! A young couple, smartly dressed and ready to dazzle. They have their hands locked into a habitual embrace, more for stability than comfort. I wonder how many days it has been since they stopped thinking about it, stopped walking by themselves but stopped noticing each other’s company at the same time? Each nose is buried into a smartphone, the free hand tapping away furiously, probably setting up half a dozen appointments, bringing them one step closer to paying their half of this month’s rent. They reach the junction. They must part ways. A quick peck on the cheek and a fleeting smile and then, the second hand flurries into action as well. No harm done, no time lost, no ill feelings.

Once in a while, not too rarely, I see a little girl. Even now, as I close my eyes, I can see her in front of me, wearing that cheery summer dress of blueberries and raspberries, clutching on tightly to a helium balloon that perhaps her dad bought her on his way to work. She stands on the pavement, her eyes glazed by a look of awe and amazement. She seems overwhelmed. I would be too if I spent hours staring at weird briefcases and weirder knees; some clothes, others waxed but all hurried. Her eyes slowly widen and if I watch carefully, I can see them swim, first wading and then drowning in her own tears. She seems lost and most often she is. She looks up. Mommy, she calls, waiting for a helping hand and a protective shove. Mommy doesn’t materialize, her mind probably already preoccupied by more pressing matters of meetings to reschedule and clients to please.

As the world goes by me, I sit in my corner. I’m sure you’ve seen me. I’m the one in front of your favourite coffee shop, the one you have to pass by to cross that busy junction to work, the one who sits against your school wall inconveniencing you when you are rushing to class. You must have seen me, my glazed eyes and matted hair, my worn clothes and holey shoes. You must have heard me ask for a penny in change, a minute of your time, a kind word to spare. You remember that hurried look of pity you threw? The glance dripping with detached sympathy and masked condescension? Yes, that was to me.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like reaching out just an inch more. I feel like grabbing the hem of your clothes and get you to stop for just a minute. Enough of the meetings, I feel like crying. Enough of the deadlines and the appointments, of the to-do lists and the commitments. Enough, enough, enough. Now, you will listen.

You think I am a loafer, a liability. You think you can judge me, standing atop the pedestal of your perfect life. I’m the muck you ignore, the backdrop to your life. The broken tiles on the pavement, the remnants of yesterday’s construction project and me – you describe us all in the same breath. We are the dark underbelly to your spotlight, the pungent odour to your potpourri. Yet, sometimes I feel like calling out to you and reminding you. We think as well and we see, often more than you do.

Do you know what it feels to live amongst the waste of the ‘better’ and the ‘greater’? Does your soul know the all-pervading sense of numbness that creeps in with decades of invisibility? Does your body know what it means to not be able to move for want of somewhere to go? Has your tongue ever craved just one piece of bread that wasn’t touched by another’s lips, either man or beast? I didn’t think so. Yet, every time you walk by, I want to pull on that hem and ask anyway. So you will know too.

You think I am a loafer and I probably am. I don’t fit into your world and unlike you, I don’t try. I will not stand in front of the mirror every morning, holding ties against my shirt, wondering whether stripes or stars are the way to go. I will not forget to kiss my wife goodbye in a hurry to escape peak hour traffic. I will not miss my daughter’s first stage appearance because I was overseas on a business meeting. I will not shush my children at the dinner table to hear the eight o’ clock news speaking of the Sensex. I will not be that person and hence, I am the loafer.

I am the man at every corner. I know that deep down, in those few seconds of calm and quiet, you think of me; of who I am and what I do and how I got here. I know you wonder what it is like to be me. The next morning, you will rush by me just the same but you will throw me a small smile, almost like a secret just for the two of us. Just at that moment, I will know some more. I will know that you thought of me yesterday, and you thought a kindly thought.

You wonder who I am and today, I will tell you. I am the unknown whose tendrils are a little too close. I am the strangeness that disrupts your ease. I am the imperfection in this facade of a perfect world. I am the stranger who is a little too familiar, the man you wish you didn’t know.

But rest easy, little one. You do not know me. It is I who knows you. Each of you, for to me, you are all the same.