There is a park in my neighbourhood, opens at 5
AM and shuts down at 8 PM. Being an injured man these days, I have nothing
better to do than take never-ending walks in the park. Big trees, trimmed
grass, flowery plants, fountains, benches, and a bit of unavoidable voyeurism –
that’s the order of the day, on a good day. And there is no bad day in
the park.
There is an old woman, comes at sharp 7 AM. I
hear that her name is Hope. She looks like she could die any minute, but never
does. She does her laughing alone. I think she could use a trainer. ‘How does
the air taste?’ I jokingly asked her once as she laughed gaspingly beside me.
And staring back at my newly refurbished soul, she murmured, ‘Bitter’. Since
then I avoid talking to her.
But everybody loves a bit of Hope in the park.
Especially the couples and the police guard.
While the elders jog, some children sing
Twinkle-Twinkle as they play games. There is a separate arena for them, and
other performers and practitioners alike. Games have changed. Some joggers are
reluctant, especially the one that I call Dudeji. He is from Patna and has
grown up in Bangalore. He has got many friends, two cars, and a girlfriend of
ten years that his life revolves around.
They are going to get married next year. That’s
eleven years before marriage. He tells me that they had met in the same park.
She also used to jog then. I immediately imagined a fitter version of her. But
my imagination is very wild, so I stopped. Eleven years is a long time to
process, I wasn’t even the same man eleven months ago.
Sometimes Dudeji likes to share a spliff in the
park. I am reluctant but fundamentalist. The police guard knows me, let’s not
get into how. Me and police go back long before you learnt to read or I learnt
to write. He is a cool guy, wears civilian clothes and does not bother those
people who do not bother others. I’m one of those people, but not Dudeji.
Dudeji is what Hope calls an exhibitionist. He
plays Michael Jackson in the car parked outside the park so that he could hear
it while sitting inside near the fence. Beat it. Hope is inside the park on
most days. I have not seen her much outside the park. I wonder if she has a
family, people who care for her even if the old pouty woman wouldn’t give a
pigeon a grain.
It seems to me that Hope wakes up every morning
completely lost. And then she finds the park, every single day. And in the park
she finds a new favourite spot for herself every day. And thereafter this mad
woman finds all these people to gesture, smile, and stare down at. And then she
laughs till her heart rate does not pull her blood circulation out of danger
for that day, every single day, till Dudeji takes her home, till there isn’t a
bad day in the park.
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