I continue my brisk walk around the lake. It is dusk and the colours are fast changing. The players are retiring from their practice, most of them clayey wet from head to toe, playing a kind of soccer I would have loved to play even now. Some take a dip in the sprawling waters, precisely at a point that states, ‘bathing strictly prohibited.’ The boys are not law-breakers, but simple souls, unaware of a regimental living, like we all have got used to.
Young couples hurry, for they would lose a vantage dark point beneath a tree if late. A few are regulars, and force their secluded seats as a matter of their right. The passive security men show hardly any interest, many of them at the mercy of the moody monsoon showers. A few vulnerable are stopped and prevented with their plastic bags and are also advised to carry the bags hidden from sight. Free legal and medical and counseling is the forte of kind-hearted Bengalis.
An old tea seller is puffing his cigarette with unbridled passion in the no smoking area. ‘Business is bad,’ he laments, ‘I am old and cannot move around. Those who go around do brisk business,’ he claims matter of fact. I have seen brisk business taking place around in many lakes, offering fish feed at a premium. They could give to these old men born and lived and likely to die around lakes some means of dignified income.
The silhouetted figures nudge closer, whispering promises and trusting each other. Dreams and faith are building hopes. Fortunately, there is no moral policing, excepting a few eunuchs fortifying the hopes, blessing the couples and seeking some alms.
I smell the beautiful aroma of wet earth as I walk, wondering elsewhere, people are smelling biryanis looking for beef, a few others smelling the fragrance of women and getting secretly filmed in their journey to suicidal political careers. Why not, I wonder nature walk is made kind of compulsory for the religious zealots and political leaders?
Nazrul Manch is as usual sunk in Rabindra Sangeet sponsored by fairness cream vendors and like as I almost reach the exit gate.
I had sweat badly, perhaps the humidity did the extra bit, as my mind wanders, what if human succeeds in extracting salt from sweat, like water from thin air and gold from Gujarati cows’ urine! No I should not think evil of Tata’s salt, poor group, already watching helplessly their dream nano project being dismantled at Singur.
Ooops, the idiot young driver on Southern Avenue, nearly grazed past me, as I stop dreaming and coming to senses.
Enjoy a fine weekend.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide voix
