The Man Across the Street

There is something about observing random strangers that I really enjoy...I can't exactly put my finger on what it is, but I could spend an entire day at an Airport lounge just looking at people. A certain consuming interest in these people in transit grips me, as I draw my imaginary conclusions and build a fictional story around them. The nervous middle aged woman travelling alone, the confident teenager with neon coloured headphones plugged in her ear, the toddler glued to his fathers cellphone games, the young man speaking in a low tone on his phone, the elderly couple clutching at their bags...all of these and many many more have served as protagonists in my make believe world.

But sometimes, a few of these faces just tend to stay with you. I find it difficult to shake off the memory of few faces, and I can't help but wonder about the real stories these people's lives hold. One such face was that of an elderly man who lived across the street from me in Delhi.

It would be a blatant lie if I ventured out to call him handsome, and neither was he the suave old gentleman that always sets womens' heart into a flutter, irrespective of their age. He was a tall, thin man with wheatish complexion...bald except for a scruffy white rim of curly hair, which used to look shabbier because of his constant scratching. He had small stern eyes and a large nose, and although he didn't go about with a scowl or frown, there was something grumpy about him...so much so that I childishly nicknamed him "Cranky Uncle" in my head.

Cranky Uncle had the weirdest sense of dressing himself up. Infact, he would hardly ever be fully dressed. He would come out of his ground floor flat in the morning dressed in pinstriped boxer shorts and a baniyaan, and for some unfathomable reason, he would always, always have his watch strapped to his wrist. A broken down old sofa stood outside his door, the sight of its springs through the wide hole in it enough to discourage any passerby to rest his posterior upon it. Cranky Uncle would come out thus in the morning and take his seat of pride on his sofa, and spend the day just staring down the road impassively.

Was he waiting for someone? Children, grandchildren, perhaps? He lived with his wife, and I never saw anybody visit the couple, nor did they call on anybody. He would spend the day on his sofa, looking up and down the street and sometimes walk to the grocery store at the corner to get groceries. He used to be up and about around afternoon, around the time the children of the neighbourhood got back from school. I never saw him smiling or playing with these children, on the contrary, he would often be seen talking to them authoratatively, and children would just timidly answer him and scamper away.

Any kind of activity on the street used to interest him immensely. It was a neighbourhood full of students and professionals living in rented out flats, and there would always be someone moving in or moving out of the colony. The movers and packers loading stuff into the trucks and tempos would invariably draw Cranky Uncle to the scene. He would observe the men heaving cupboards and refrigerators onto the truck, and he would pitch in with his own suggestions, however unwanted, and insist that they listen to him. Political parties would hold small rallies in the colony during Assembly Elections, and he would collect all the pamphlets and peruse them with keen interest. He would be the first person to go and sit in the first row at these rallies and would take his seat well before the speaker actually arrived.

It was evident that he wasn't very well off. On Diwali, when the entire street came to life and fairy lights adorned homes all around, his house remained dark for quite some time...until he came out and lit a single, solitary candle on his windowsill. He kept staring at the people bursting crackers with their children as brilliant fireworks lit up the sky, but he didn't for once participate in the festivities.

His poverty didn't affect me as much as his solitude did. He was alone, for sure, but whether he was lonely or not only he could tell. I never found out the reason for his silence and I hardly ever saw him smiling. He could be a man once well off and now on hard times...or he could very well be the eccentric grumpy old man... He could even be the one with nothing to hold on to except his sense of pride...he could have been any of these or none of these, but I would never know. He wore the same grumpy look when I boarded my luggage into the cab that would take me away from this neighbourhood forever, and as I gently nodded towards him and gave him a weak smile, he just stared right back at me and then looked away.