My Own Little Town- II

My little town has not yet ceased to amaze me. For the record, these posts have been inspired by a Heritage Walk that we took through the littler by-lanes in the very centre of Pune, where this wonderful place began....not chronologically but in the sense of the evolution of an identity so unmistakable that you cannot help but do a double take when you really get to the bottom of it all.

Ringed 'round the market, as if in radiating circles, vendors sat there with the most enticing array of wares you ever dreamed of. Flowers piled high against the troubled grey of a busy road and chillies set in contrast with tomatoes all found a spot of place that made it look like they were all posing for pictures. Potatoes, camouflaging with the dusty colour of the jute sacks that they were crammed into and great, tumbling stacks of pink onions, glowing with the pungent colour and the bright smells (intended) that can never be dissociated from these wondrous veges.

'Nothing seems to be bogging these people down', i think. They sit there under their umbrellas watching the play of shadow and light on their spread and its all just another day in the rat race for them. It's just another day of trying to woo the money. The beauty of what they do is a negligible, unnecessary consideration. That's for us. For those lost in the vast, cushy lap of luxury, this everyday spectacle is like a little slice of life out of the ordinary.

A spice vendor was sitting not more than a foot away from where i stood. Hers was a NatGeo-worthy picture, if one was to be clicked. The spices all stood in neat plastic bags; intriguing colours and textures emerging from within something deceptively plain. She had them all meticulously packed into her tokri, one bag just about squishing the next, but looking comfortable in their small space. She was a wiry woman with sun-burned features and beady eyes. All she did was look at me and i saw all that she was thinking, or all that i thought she was thinking. Her eyes seemed to say, 'rich brat, you're here looking at me like i'm some sort of exhibit. You marvel at the wonders of my ways but really, yours are the ones that are out of place here. You're like a tourist in your own city (and i looked local enough)...' and though this could have been/is most likely a paranoid expression of a traditional guilt, it hit me. We were there, being all awestruck and wide-eyed at something that happens everyday for these people. We weren't the explorers. We were the intruders.

The lanes get narrower and though you'd think that the vendors would be jostling for space with the blasphemous pedestrian, the mindless two wheeler and the irate rickshaw, there's no such chaos! There's co-operation like never before. The two wheelers and rickshaws are mindful of the fact that there can only be one culprit for a 'situation', if one arises, and that it is, always, the pedestrian. In my humble opinion, the vendors wield some sort of charm over everyone else...and i wonder if God himself knows what that is!

Most times beauty is tangible. Quantifiable, even. But here, within the beat of the city, you cannot tell where the beauty is coming from and what is making all these things so alive and brilliant. Is it the hardy look in every pair of eyes you see? Is it the infallible unity that these people seem to possess? Is it the place? Is it the people? Is it the pride in the stance of everyone you pass? And that pride is the most thrilling thing to be touched by because it's indiscriminate and without aggression, it's pride but it's not arrogance... It's just the way of the town i love.

KarishmaModi

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