People we meet and don't forget..

Four years ago, still fresh to Bangalore streets I was curious about everything. I would walk different roads everyday( I still do). There's often a nice haste to the roads if you stand still, very still and try and observe that pace. I stood still that day, watching a little boy ride his bicycle sitting on the handle bar and pedaling backwards, reminded of my own antics with the bike in school. Absentmindedly, I had leaned on a gate, which gave away and I almost fell into the premises of a Shiv Mandir. Surprised, I walked in, almost instinctively opening my shoes and wandering around. Some lines registered themselves on my phone as I watched a Linga touched by hands, melt in milk and grow. A small temple and too many people didn't make for a rosy picture, but the stone floor was cool and experiments with the feet a nice pastime sometimes. Like other people, I threw coins at the fishes and watched them being ignored and then I saw her(him). To everyone walking past, there sat a Eunuch selling flowers. For me it was a strange pull, I couldn't take my eyes off the mesmerizing creature with a gorgeous smile, a red saree, a big bindi of sindoor plastered on the forehead, hair coiled up high on the head like lord Shiva's mane and an armful of flowers for whoever came by. I approached cautiously and smiled, while asking for permission to take a photograph. There was a initial hesitancy and then a shy smile. There are certain people with whom you feel like smiling just for the sake of it, just for the love of it. There are certain people, who make you feel good for no reason at all, there presence is good enough. Day after day, that figure sits and sells flowers, smiles at people..goes home perhaps, without the knowledge of a silent smile that she( he) is surrounded by. Seeing her( him) makes me happy and that is all there is to it, all that is necessary too. There have been plenty of times, when I have crossed that road and saw that figure in red, I might have been busy or rushing somewhere but that presence in red never failed to calm me. Every time I have got down from the car, walked the certain distance, smiled and walked back..we don't understand each other's language, perhaps its better that way.