The walk back home

‘Ok I’ll do the remaining at home’ I shut the laptop, stood up and stretched myself with a long breath.

‘Bye Ajay am leaving’

‘Bye da, see you tomorrow’ Ajay said

‘Bye Sharath’ ‘Bye man’. ‘Bye Shakthi’ ‘Bye Dharshan’

I left my office, in the first floor and climbed the stairs down, it was 4.30 in the evening.

I usually take a walk back home in the evenings after work since my house was only a couple of kilometers away from office and also it was useful exercise in an otherwise ‘physical activity wise dormant’ life.

I just hit the main road when a white Audi A7 sport-back zoomed by. I kept staring at the car until it went out of sight. I love Audi cars – though the chances of me affording one look very very bleak.

I turned and started to walk. The sky was gloomy and a cool breeze was blowing in the opposite direction. The trees swayed to the rhythm as little leaves fell gently on to the foot path having given in to the might of the breeze.

I noticed a bunch of high school boys standing in front of a small bakery with tea glasses in their hands, chattering away and laughing without having an ounce of care to what was happening around them. I could only think of my school days and smile to myself.

It was only about 4.30 in the evening, so the traffic was just beginning to gather momentum. I walked on.

A very old lady almost crouched in half with soiled rags, who could barely walk came slowly to me and put her hands up together. I felt my pocket, found a 5 rupee coin and handed it to her. She took it, mumbled something in kannada with her hands now signaling as if blessing me and walked away.

I marched on and reached the four road junction where the huge temple was located – I don’t know which God was inside. The junction did not have a traffic signal, and hence I always noticed the traffic constable there had a tough time doing his job. Today, it was even crowded as something special was happening and a large number of devotees were going in and out of the temple. With cars and bikes and buses reeling in from all four directions, the police officer couldn’t afford to relax one moment. He was incessantly moving his hands – raising them asking people to stop, waving asking people to move on – and screaming at the occasional ‘busy guy ’ who wouldn’t obey his instructions. I wondered how many of the people driving by ever once thought of the service this police officer was doing to them. They always seemed to abuse him for stopping them.

I crossed the road quickly when there were no vehicles and continued walking. It had to be an auspicious day, the temple was in a festive mood. I peeped inside from the wide gates and saw colorful pictures inside. The deity was decorated with garlands and jewels and it looked like a substantial quantity of milk was poured on it just some time ago. The people – from children to old people – were dressed in new clothes and were praying, strolling around the ‘mandap’, sitting in the side steps relishing their ‘prasadham’ and chatting in low voices. The priest was performing the special ‘pooja’ while people with clasped hands on both sides of the central walkway looked on while a few were praying with their eyes closed. People who had bought their new cars and bikes had parked them outside and waited for the priest to come and perform the ‘poojas’ for them. I walked past a Toyota Etios, a Hyundai i10, a Bajaj Discover and a Honda Activa – all brand new, waiting to be christened.

The clouds had gathered and the sky was getting darker. The breeze was still blowing.

The ground on the right side of the road was almost full today. At one end, there was the newly built roller skating track. Children between the age what looked to me like 4 and 16 with their helmets and knee caps and roller blades on were skating in full speed. Some of them were just gliding along with their hands on their knees – may be they’ve been skating for some time now. The trainer with the whistle hung around his neck was standing in the middle of the oval instructing his wards to slow down and speed up whenever he thought was right. The mothers were sitting in the stairs-like-seats made of concrete built all along one side of the rectangle, with their kids’ bags and gears and water bottles on their sides. Their eyes were stuck on their kids – eyes which shone with pride, care, joy and love. The other end of the ground had nets in which school boys of the similar age of that of the skaters were practicing their batting and bowling skills. Cricket coaches of the Karnataka Cricket Academy were teaching them the basics cricket. Little kids clad in white with the huge helmets and pads and gloves on looked cute as ever to watch. Their mothers too were sitting and watching them silently hoping that their son would one day get to play cricket for our country.

In the middle part of the ground was where the real action was happening. As much as I could observe, about 8 different groups of guys were playing cricket – 8 different matches at the same time – in about half of the ground’s space left over from the skating track and the training nets. This particular picture was common in all the grounds in Bangalore. Whenever I saw this, a million questions came to mind. How does the batsman know where he hit the ball among the entire crowd? How does the fielder know which ball belonged to their game with balls from 7 other games flying around? Even if the fielder managed to find the ball how did he know which stump to throw at? How did the batsmen know where the fielder was running and how could they ever judge a run? I never seemed to get the answers, but they continued to play – running, diving, screaming…adrenalin as always was in full flow.

I had now reached 39^th cross where I had to cross the road and take the left inside to go to my house. I crossed the road when two girls of about my age crossed from the opposite side. I looked at them from the side of my eye – one was pretty hot while the other was almost as good – and reached the other side just as an auto rickshaw sped behind me, close call it was! The girls reached the opposite side of the road. I turned back for one last look at them and then continued walking.

I came to the small park, a couple of streets before my house which was well maintained and was always bustling with people. I could see children playing in the sea-saw and the merry-go-round while women chatted, sitting in the long wooden chairs laid along the perimeter of the park. An elderly person, a few middle aged women and a small boy with cylindrical specs were walking briskly around the park.

I was almost home when it started to drizzle. The first drop fell on my face and I felt a chill. I stood by the gate and waited for a few minutes for the drizzle to get heavier. I got slightly drenched and then opened the gate and entered my house. I climbed the stairs – our house was in the first floor – opened the lock and went inside. I put my laptop bag down, took a light shower, changed and went straight into the kitchen. There was milk left over from the morning – had cereal with milk for breakfast – and Nescafe which I had bought yesterday. I made coffee for myself, took the cup and walked out to the balcony.

I sat there on the floor, it was cold and it was raining heavily outside, steam from the coffee rising above my face and dwindling into the air.

I took a sip, and said to myself…

‘I love this city’.