What Does It Take?
A Peculiar Day
For as long as he could remember, Hamid had always taken Roshanara road to get to his house from school. Today was no different. In fact, he had become so used to this walk home that if he were to think back to all the days he had done it, he’d be hard pressed to distinguish one day from another. Did that mean that all the hours of his life he had spent travelling on this road were lost forever? Had the innocuous walk taken away from him a part of his life? He did not know whether that was true or even why he was thinking these thoughts.
He found that if he let his mind ramble in the maze of pointless thought, it almost always served to relax him. Of course, this came with a price. Occasionally, people would come up to him when he was in a personal reverie and rudely interrupt him with social pleasantries. Did they even qualify as pleasantries he wondered? Especially when all they did was bring him back to a world that scarcely seemed to take notice of him. And what was so good about being part of society or the world at large anyway?
To avoid sudden interactions breaking into his private world, he had lately taken up to walking with his eyes to the ground. It was a bit like some of the girls in his school who had just sprouted the strangest protrusions on their chests. He didn’t think they looked down for the same reason that he did. He thought that like some of the boys in his class, the girls too enjoyed looking at their chest all the time. Unfortunately, he was at a loss when it came to this strange obsession. He had concluded that this was just one of those things that weren’t interesting enough to devote any time to. After all, how interesting could a body part really be? In the end, it was all just skin and bones.
He didn’t like to admit it, even to himself, but he did enjoy watching other boys watch some of the more bloated (was that even the proper word for this?) girls in the class. Somehow, it made him feel powerful that whereas he couldn’t care less, these boys could not help but surrender to their urge to stare. And for a moment, they simply forgot to take notice of the world around them. He thought that they might feel something like his thoughtful reveries at these times. Maybe it was their way of escaping the world. Maybe they just weren’t clever to get lost in their own thoughts.
Hamid’s habit of walking with his eyes to the ground had exposed him to a few new things. For one, he now could identify each of the varieties of flowers that grew in the flower beds by Roshanara road on his way from school to home. He had borrowed (more like stolen) his brother’s digital camera for a few days and photographed all the different flowers he saw. He had then matched the photos up with those on the Internet to find out what each one of them was called. The wide array of flowers he had found was astonishing. No less than 40 different kinds! Ever since then, he’d taken to counting and keeping track of the flowers to bide his time while walking home everyday. It was a sort of floral census. If the government ever decided to do some sort of count of the number of flowers in the country, he felt confident that he would be able to handle the role of the floral census officer for his little stretch of Roshanara road.
Today however, he saw a new kind of flower on the ground. This one wasn’t even growing in a flower bed. It had just sort of come out of a crack in the concrete pavement. He was so startled that he just stopped dead, almost causing a burly man behind him to trip over him. Fortunately, the man just grimaced at him and walked away. He saw the grimace out of the corner of his eye and didn’t even look up lest the man try to teach him a lesson in morality. Anyway, he was far too concerned with his new find to care what the big man thought of him.
What was surprising was that Hamid was sure that the flower hadn’t been there yesterday. Yes, he was quite sure. His floral census was faultless. Had somebody planted it there? But who would plant something in the crevice of a pavement where it was quite likely it would be trampled by some passer by? It couldn’t have grown there overnight, could it? He resolved in his head, there and then, to find out where this flower could have come from. After all, events like this didn’t happen every day. And he owed it to his duties as a floral census officer to keep accurate count of any flowers on this particular stretch.
Now he had a problem though. He couldn’t go home because he couldn’t risk the flower being trampled by somebody while he went home to get his brother’s camera. However, he didn’t want to pluck the flower either. What if it was the last one of its kind in the world? Come to think of it, what if it was the first one of its kind? So he just stood there, thinking about a possible course of action. He didn’t really have any friends, nobody who wouldn’t laugh at his foolish notion of trying to protect a flower that had sprouted up on the pavement. Besides, not too many kids from school used Roshanara road anyway. It ran by a cemetery and that scared some of the other kids off. Hamid didn’t get that. What was so scary about dead people anyway? If anything, the dead ought to be afraid of the living.
To bide the time while he waited for something to come to him, Hamid decided to tell himself stories. He had a fertile imagination, surely enough to keep himself entertained for a while.
For as long as he could remember, Hamid had always taken Roshanara road to get to his house from school. Today was no different. In fact, he had become so used to this walk home that if he were to think back to all the days he had done it, he’d be hard pressed to distinguish one day from another. Did that mean that all the hours of his life he had spent travelling on this road were lost forever? Had the innocuous walk taken away from him a part of his life? He did not know whether that was true or even why he was thinking these thoughts.
He found that if he let his mind ramble in the maze of pointless thought, it almost always served to relax him. Of course, this came with a price. Occasionally, people would come up to him when he was in a personal reverie and rudely interrupt him with social pleasantries. Did they even qualify as pleasantries he wondered? Especially when all they did was bring him back to a world that scarcely seemed to take notice of him. And what was so good about being part of society or the world at large anyway?
To avoid sudden interactions breaking into his private world, he had lately taken up to walking with his eyes to the ground. It was a bit like some of the girls in his school who had just sprouted the strangest protrusions on their chests. He didn’t think they looked down for the same reason that he did. He thought that like some of the boys in his class, the girls too enjoyed looking at their chest all the time. Unfortunately, he was at a loss when it came to this strange obsession. He had concluded that this was just one of those things that weren’t interesting enough to devote any time to. After all, how interesting could a body part really be? In the end, it was all just skin and bones.
He didn’t like to admit it, even to himself, but he did enjoy watching other boys watch some of the more bloated (was that even the proper word for this?) girls in the class. Somehow, it made him feel powerful that whereas he couldn’t care less, these boys could not help but surrender to their urge to stare. And for a moment, they simply forgot to take notice of the world around them. He thought that they might feel something like his thoughtful reveries at these times. Maybe it was their way of escaping the world. Maybe they just weren’t clever to get lost in their own thoughts.
Hamid’s habit of walking with his eyes to the ground had exposed him to a few new things. For one, he now could identify each of the varieties of flowers that grew in the flower beds by Roshanara road on his way from school to home. He had borrowed (more like stolen) his brother’s digital camera for a few days and photographed all the different flowers he saw. He had then matched the photos up with those on the Internet to find out what each one of them was called. The wide array of flowers he had found was astonishing. No less than 40 different kinds! Ever since then, he’d taken to counting and keeping track of the flowers to bide his time while walking home everyday. It was a sort of floral census. If the government ever decided to do some sort of count of the number of flowers in the country, he felt confident that he would be able to handle the role of the floral census officer for his little stretch of Roshanara road.
Today however, he saw a new kind of flower on the ground. This one wasn’t even growing in a flower bed. It had just sort of come out of a crack in the concrete pavement. He was so startled that he just stopped dead, almost causing a burly man behind him to trip over him. Fortunately, the man just grimaced at him and walked away. He saw the grimace out of the corner of his eye and didn’t even look up lest the man try to teach him a lesson in morality. Anyway, he was far too concerned with his new find to care what the big man thought of him.
What was surprising was that Hamid was sure that the flower hadn’t been there yesterday. Yes, he was quite sure. His floral census was faultless. Had somebody planted it there? But who would plant something in the crevice of a pavement where it was quite likely it would be trampled by some passer by? It couldn’t have grown there overnight, could it? He resolved in his head, there and then, to find out where this flower could have come from. After all, events like this didn’t happen every day. And he owed it to his duties as a floral census officer to keep accurate count of any flowers on this particular stretch.
Now he had a problem though. He couldn’t go home because he couldn’t risk the flower being trampled by somebody while he went home to get his brother’s camera. However, he didn’t want to pluck the flower either. What if it was the last one of its kind in the world? Come to think of it, what if it was the first one of its kind? So he just stood there, thinking about a possible course of action. He didn’t really have any friends, nobody who wouldn’t laugh at his foolish notion of trying to protect a flower that had sprouted up on the pavement. Besides, not too many kids from school used Roshanara road anyway. It ran by a cemetery and that scared some of the other kids off. Hamid didn’t get that. What was so scary about dead people anyway? If anything, the dead ought to be afraid of the living.
To bide the time while he waited for something to come to him, Hamid decided to tell himself stories. He had a fertile imagination, surely enough to keep himself entertained for a while.
posted by Arun at 12:18 PM
6 Comments:
And then?
Sure, a very fertile imagination. Tell us some more.
Whet your appetite did I? :) The next story's still taking shape in my mind. I intend to do something really interesting with the narrative and see how far I can carry this thing.
Too much autobiographical. :) Isn't it? I could see too many similarities.
But a good one indeed.
It is kind of like one of those stories in school, isn't it. I like simple things, and this is a simple story. True, it does reflect a little of myself. But what do you expect, I wrote it didn't I?
I have a very interesting idea for the next in this series. Lets see whether I can develop it into a full story. I'm hoping to do some illustrations time/talent permitting. For a change, my new project doesn't involve any coding :)
very verrry cool! i like!
Why thank you! Care to introduce yourself?
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