I sat on a low wall just where the market street turns into a narrow lane. The flat cement surface on which I sat was polished smooth by innumerable backsides. It was mid Saturday morning and while I was waiting for my wife, I relaxed and watched the bustling activity in the Vile Parle market street. Young students were hurrying to or returning from coaching classes; there are many such classes held in premises near the station at the end of the road. And there were people buying in the day's vegetables and fruits from the countless vendors that line both sides of the street.
|
There were old ladies wearing saris, younger ladies wearing, perhaps, salvar kameez and girls in jeans and tee shirt. The husbands mostly wore shirt and pants. The vegetable vendors were more traditionally dressed; mostly kurta pajama.
As I sat and watched, a rather scruffy dog appeared from nowhere. It was a bitch. Her coat was patchy and her teats were heavy with milk; she must have had a litter recently. Across the road from where I was sitting, a man rested, leaning against a no-parking sign. He wore the type of lavenderish-white kurta pajama that ordinary working men wear. The bitch went directly up to the man and greeted him with eager anticipation; wagging the whole of her rear quarters as dogs do when happy emotions overflow the scope of mere tail wagging. It was clear that she knew him. For his part, he acknowledged her presence with a casual nod and slowly started crossing the road, the bitch following him.
The man went into the court yard close to where I sat, and entered a small shop. The bitch sat restlessly outside, now accompanied by one more stray; also a bitch. Moments later, the man emerged, carrying a packet of Parle-G biscuits; a popular brand. They are made in a factory that is just the other side of the railway line that divides the suburban West from the more industrialised East. I used to drive past the factory on my way home. The characteristic waft of baking and vanilla essence needed no Sherlock Holms to tell you that you were passing a biscuit factory.
The three went back into the lane. The man opened the packet and took out two biscuits at a time, broke them neatly in two and threw them down for the waiting dogs. The two dogs ate with gusto, their tails wagging vigorously. When the packet was empty, he tossed it casually in the gutter and walked off. The first bitch followed him for a while, but returned after a few minutes. She sniffed around the site of their mid-morning repast, finding the last few fragments and crumbs of biscuits. When she was satisfied that nothing remained, she crept down into the open gutter at the side of the lane and squeezed herself through a small opening that presumably led to her den under the surface of the road and her waiting pups.
Taj Mahal![[Next]](images/forward.gif){kind=small}