We go there everyday. Standing among the mango trees, it’s an apt place to escape from everything for a while. Spring came, but unlike the blooms personified by Wordsworth, brought along with it the flying dust which clung to our skins aided by the beads of perspiration, accompanied by the glowing sun, now back from its cold sabbatical.The advent of April brought more dust and a little more sun. There he was, in his white skull cap and faded yellow t-shirt. His complexion matched the color of the soil he plowed. He must have been around 70, could be 80 too. His white beard made apparent his desire to color it with henna, just like the prophet’s beard. Perhaps, that’s why he still worked, striving to create an opportunity to embark on that pilgrimage, the sacred duty of every devout Muslim, lest the arms of time embrace him to the depth of the earth. Maybe the plowing reminded him of the grave that awaited him, informing him about his mortality, the cycle which continues in its everlasting endeavor. Probably condemned to this task by an overzealous official of the horticulture department, his actions appeared to be fruitless and in vain, creating tiny canals to the trees, the water for which might never appear.
He plowed, using his hands to smoothen the base, occasionally standing to relieve his ageing back. I imagined the crackling sound as I watched him stretch his muscles. He would look heavenwards, as if begging for a little more time. During afternoons, a bag hanging on one of the low branches would reveal a tiny tin tiffin, containing a few chappatis and an onion. He ate slowly, savoring every morsel to the fullest. His restlessness wouldn’t allow him a nap, and he would rise from the ground, only to get covered with the same soil again. This continued for days. Apparently oblivious to us, he would dig and plow. Soon his presence started going unnoticed to me, my restless mind having found its interests in newer mysteries. Also, I confess that the predictability of his actions had begun to bore me and my empathy. Weeks went by and the temperature continued with its climb. The mango tree shielded us from the sun’s wrath, but the loo had begun to make its presence felt. Meanwhile he plowed on. One such afternoon while we entertained ourselves with frivolous talk, he cleared the mud with his hands, making a cup out of them and discarding them outside the channels. The fruit of weeks of hard labor was at the verge of being realized. I noticed the newfound energy in his actions as he went about finishing his work. The loo didn’t seem to have any effect on him. And then, he collapsed, loudly gasping for air. We rushed to his side. His eyes stared at the sky, pained yet calm in a strange way. “Allah”, he uttered softly. A tear left the corner of his eye a moment before life deserted him. In his hand, he still clutched a handful of earth.
