A Walk to Work

          Some days I walk to work. During the winters, I do it almost every day, but in the summers, only on mornings such as this when a whole night of rain has cooled the air and eased the bite of the sun. Last night it had rained incessantly accompanied by much thunder, lightning and stormy winds; as a result today had dawned fresh, cool and inviting. Tempted by the ‘autumn’esque feel in the air, I had decided to walk to work. The distance is not much and since I was early, I walked leisurely, enjoying the sparkling new day. As I took my usual detour , jumping over the storm drain, Mimie standing on my sofa at the living room window, her favourite perch, gave a questioning bark, “What , no car today?” I knew very well the reason behind her intense interest; no car meant that there was absolutely no chance for a joyride for her when I returned from work. I laughed, waved at her and walked on.

          Though officially the Monsoons had not yet arrived, scattered rains and the odd thunderstorm had watered well the summer dried earth and as a result wild grass grew everywhere in gay abandon. The municipality employees were yet to descend with their sickles and ruthless ‘brush-cutters’ and so unfettered, they had grown up to knee length and were now sparkling happily in the morning sun. Under the wild fig tree, I spotted my friend the one-legged mynah foraging around for breakfast in the grass. Wondering where his partner was, I soon spotted her, behind the trunk of the tree, squabbling with a grey squirrel over the fallen figs.

           There are numerous eucalyptus trees in the area and with last night’s fierce winds having ripped the brown bark off, their trunks now glistened smooth and white. I thought they looked rather grand, a bit like those marble columns from the Parthenon or the Acropolis; but it seemed that the hornbills that nested within the holes in the trunks of these trees were not at all happy as the camouflage provided by that ragged brown bark was now all gone. I spotted them overhead, flying around in much ado, flitting from tree to tree, convening short meetings to troubleshoot this new problem.

          Ahead by the great concrete dustbin sat the Three Dogs, snatching a quick snooze in the cool of the early morning before the sun became too hot. While two of them did not even blink as I passed them by, Handsome dutifully stood up and gave me his customary bow. I don’t know why but he had taken a fancy to me and since I hadn’t been able to resist the attentions of this handsome young man with his smooth grey-brown coat, muscular carriage and dreamboat eyes, we had forged a friendship of sorts, of course from a distance. Handsome would always give me a chivalrous bow when our paths crossed and I confess in this day of ‘women’s emancipation’ with chivalry long deceased, it did make me feel rather grand.

          I walked on and as I neared my office gate, I paused for a moment at the edge of the main road before venturing beyond. It was here that the man crossed my path. Having spotted me, he deferentially stepped aside and then greeted me with a brief smile, “Namaste Madam!” before moving on. I smiled back in reflex and returned his greeting, “Namaste!” and crossed the road.

I had not yet stepped into my office porch when the Voice sneaked in, whispering, “He said Namaste....... ....!!!!!

“So what?” I replied, “What’s so strange about that?”

“Oh ho, didn’t you notice him properly? You walk with your eyes closed or what???!!!” said the Voice dripping derision.

I was perplexed at first but then remembered.

Upper-chest length neat beard.

Moustache trimmed very short and close to skin.

Long flowy dull gray kurta and pajamas that stopped short of his ankles.

“Didn’t you see? Didn’t you notice?” the Voice insinuated.

My mind being occupied by a major policy document that had to be drafted and despatched the same day, I still was not getting the point.

“So what?” I countered again and pushing open the door to my office, entered it.

“He’s Muslim, you tubelight.” The Voice accused me, filled with exasperation at my dumbness.

“I had guessed so.” I retorted tartly. “So what?”

“Don’t you think it strange,” the Voice whispered, “that he said Namaste?” I could make out the disbelief and distrust clearly in her voice, in spite of all that hushed whisperings.
I didn't reply at first.

So in an attempt to hammer her point in, she discarded her whispering. "He’s a Muslim and he said Namaste. Now isn’t that weird?????” The shocked indignation in her loud voice was unmistakeable.
I agreed, instinctively and instantly!
“Yeah, weird all right. Just imagine!!!” 

          And with that, I immersed myself in writing the War Doctrines against Aedes ( for those of you not familiar with her, that is the Aedes aegypti mosquito, winged enemy No 1 and personal chauffeur to  the Dengue Virus). But as the day wore on something kept niggling the back of my brain like that itch which starts right between your shoulder blades and try as you might you can’t reach it with your fingers for that lifesaving scratch.

“I think that was very juvenile!” A prim voice suddenly broke into my itchy reverie.

“Oh no....” I rued, “She is back!!!!”

I call her Ms P. Actually its Ms Prim N Propah but for the sake of brevity I refer to her simply as Ms P. Who is she? Well before I tell you who she is I must tell you something else. You see me, that is myself, c’est moi, is made of many ‘Me’s. Nothing unique in that for we all are, aren’t we, made up of many, many selves. I don’t know about you but I think that if you ever manage to slice me up into........ well, slices, you might actually find more than a thousand Me’s inside of me, each different from the rest and each quite, quite quirky. To tell you the truth, I am myself not familiar with all of these Me’s that live inside of me, though there are a few like Ms P n P whom I am pretty familiar with. There are others too with whom I am familiar, like Ms Foot-in-Mouth for example, whose USP is that she has no opinion of her own, takes on the opinion of whoever shouts the loudest, never thinks before responding and so invariably, gets her dainty feet (yes both) into her mouth pretty often. She gets reprimanded too equally often but refuses to learn the lesson of “Count hundred before you respond”! And I must tell you that the voices in my head since today morning were all hers, this Ms Foot-in-Mouth’s! Then there is Ms Couch Potato, fat, forty and famously lethargic. The day she is in ascendance, even my solid custom made teakwood bed gets dented with her continuously lounging on it for straight 36 hours without a break. And of course not to be forgotten is that ominous Ms Very-Bad-Mood. I must warn you that you wouldn’t want to meet this Slice even in your worst nightmare. I myself am terrified of her, but try as I might, haven’t quite been able to avoid crossing her path. She usually makes her appearances in sync with the moon, yet there is nothing remotely moony about her. She is a screeching, screaming, wild old hag and even when she has retired to her lair after each tantrum filled-appearance, she leaves a foul taste in the mouth. 

Reading me, it is quite possible that you are getting the impression that all my Me’s are bad. Well, that’s incorrect. I have nice Me Slices too. Take Ms Charm-the-Hind-Leg-Off-a-Donkey for example.  What a Slice, this Me: wide eyed, open smiled, soft spoken, genteel, caring and filled with enough charm to beguile even a donkey; hence the name.

Now this Ms Prim and Propah is also a slice of me, but let me tell you that I find her a big ache. She is this severe looking thing with hair pulled back in a tight bun, not one strand out of place and that severe expression on her face accentuated by a single frown line on her forehead. And I have rarely seen her smile. She has this perpetually disapproving expression on her face and an unnerving ability to look right through you, down to the deepest depths of your soul. Being my ‘Keeper of the Conscience”, she generally makes an appearance when I am occupied in a wrestling match with it. She takes her job very seriously and is the one who is always forcing me to do the ‘RIGHT’ thing, say the ‘RIGHT’ thing and even think the ‘RIGHT’ thing! (And I can’t tell you how singularly tedious and boring these ‘RIGHT’ things are!) But sometimes, more accurately many a times I do manage to go against her and when I have done those deliciously ‘wrong’ or ‘improper’ things, she responds by sulking and worse, by pricking my long suffering conscience with her disapproving needle-like stares.

And she was doing exactly that right now.

“I think that was pretty juvenile!!” she repeated, a little more forcefully this time.

I knew what she was talking about. “Why what’s wrong in thinking it weird, this being Muslim and saying Namaste?” I asked her a trifle tetchily.

“He had simply greeted you, Aibee. A normal, everyday, accepted greeting.”

Ms P sat down on the edge of my office desk. I was a little taken aback for she never did such improper things like sitting atop office desks. She was wearing a pair of rimless spectacles today and it made her look even more severe.

“Yet how did you respond Aibee? You paid no heed to his greeting. You saw only his look, his clothes, his faith........”

Ms P was in her element now.

“But did you pause to think that he had not done the same for you. When he greeted you today morning, he did not see your faith......!He simply greeted you as one person would another, human to human......! Ok may be he did see you as this lady doctor from the clinic next door, maybe you had attended to him in the past, maybe he greeted you out of a sense of appreciation and respect....But he never looked at your faith. It’s real funny, you know Aibee, that you see chivalry in the greeting of Handsome and when one of your own kin does the same, you cannot see beyond the colour of his faith.......!!!!”

I was squirming a bit now....

But she was relentless.

“He is the gardener, is he not?”

At last I could put in a word, “No, he is the municipality sweeper.”

“Whatever.” Ms P said dismissively. “Tell me Aibee, when the spring garden flowers in March just outside your office window and you spend hours gazing at it in wonder, do you ever want to know the colour of its Mali’s faith? Do you?” She demanded.

Having no suitable reply to that, I could only say, “He is not the Mali!” In a rather small voice.

But Ms P was unyielding. “Well so what if he is the sweeper? Tell me, as you took your morning pleasure walk to office today marvelling how the roads had been swept clean of the debris left by yesterday’s storm, did you ever even once wonder about the sweepers’ Gods?”

I could only nod my head penitently, “No, I didn’t!”

Ms P seemed mollified a little. And adequately chastised, I could now look into her eyes. I did so, with a sheepish grin. She was still sitting on the table’s edge, looking down at me from the top of her glasses. Beyond that severe nun like visage, I now saw a delicate sheen, a sheen of sense and of reason. She said sadly, “The rot emerges from within our own selves, Aibee, our own thoughts, from yours and from mine...... !”

She gave a great, deep sigh.

 And in the exhaling of that sigh, I felt Ms Foot-in-Mouth grow small and then disappear completely, well at least for the time being!!!

I looked at Ms P once more.

“.......And you know Aibee, the balm too lies within our own selves...!” she continued and smiled at me, one of her very, very rare smiles. I noticed how the smile reached up to her eyes and softened the severe lines of her face so that she looked actually charming now, even more charming than Ms Charm-the-Hind-Leg-Off-a-Donkey.

 I turned my head to gaze out of my office window. With a momentary lull in the rain, the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds and in its impromptu light everything sparkled, the black tarred road, the rain-faded zinnias and cock’s-combs, the rows of ashoka trees.........!

“Such a beautiful greeting, Namaste....,” I thought “Namah-Te...I bow to you. I bow to you for I see in you a reflection of the Divine as I know you see the same in me. Such an ancient language Sanskrit, ancient and wise and without prejudice.....”

And when I turned back to my desk, I found that Ms P had left. But I know now that of course she hadn’t. She had said that the balm too lies within us. All it needs is for us to just turn around and take a look, a look within our own selves. You see, there is a Ms P within all of us. The Divine, it dwells within us all.
Namaste!