That morning was nothing different. He left for work as usual, dragged himself onto the train, mumbling his prayers. Now this, I think, is interesting. He was not a theist, in fact he detested such questions which measured is faith in God or religion. But, inadvertently, whenever he was not busy talking to someone, he was busy with his prayers. Of course not the ones where he sought something from the Almighty - he was too poor to think that prayers could turn wishes into reality - but simply uttering names of all deities he knew of. Sometimes, humming and at other times, brazenly, trying to take as many names as possible, and as fast. Stations were milestones for this exercise. Crowds rushing in at the 100th, continuing till the air got stinky at 615th. He got down at the 1000th name. Clockwork precision.
Now a sweeper’s job is not really
exciting, and he knew it. Few sights in this world can be more appalling than
an abused toilet, and that was his bread and butter. But unlike his other, more
venerated, colleagues (read, the dramatis personae) from work, he did not
complain, not about his job, at least. The theater was one of the most popular
ones in the city. Somehow, he thought, the patrons were not. He used to stand
at the door that led to the staging area, sneaking a peek into all
performances. A few months into this job and he was already a popular figure among his “peers”. This began with his complaints about those “petty” actors,
who were almost always “over the top” with their acting, and on to the writers,
“consistently under-performing doing injustice to that stage”. Thanks to his
toilet job, and his complaints, we know what was going to change his life.
As he stepped into the theater,
he overheard them talking. Greeted them with a smirk and the rest was business
as usual. It was the first screening of that popular play in his city. While
the troupe was amateur, it somehow managed to get in a big name as the lead
actor. He caught a glimpse of the company rehearsing on the stage, paused for
moment, rejected the idea and moved on. If there is no woman in there, that is
no play to me, no artistry to me, he thought. Later in the day, he was cleaning
the toilet floor, when the writer and the actor barged in, the actor whistling
and the writer explaining to him some scene, something about the idea of happiness.
“You know, when I see those kids waving at the planes in the sky, what
strikes me most is that despite knowing that they are probably never going to
take that ride, and that no one on that plane would even be noticing them,
forget about waving back, they can’t hold back their excitement. This to me is
unbridled joy. In fact, I have been fortunate enough to have taken a flight,
many of them, and still, when I hear the rumbling of an airplane, I look up to
find where that thing is. I still rejoice when I see a smoke trail in the sky,
knowing that something just cut the sky into two for me.”
The actor continued whistling,
and callously cut the writer short.
“Give me something meaningful…these words of yours don’t carry enough
weight for an actor like me.”
Why is it that fuckwits still get
the most of this world, he thought to himself. That phrase sounded beautiful to
him, the way that writer expressed something so ordinary into something that
was so “philosophical”. From trying to find his reflection on the
floor, and miserably failing, he entered a different territory, finding things
which were much more valuable to him than his outline on the broken
tiles of that toilet. He started seeing a smiling wife when he leaves for work,
the lit-up face of his daughters greeting him when he comes back and the
eagerness with which they wait for Saturday evenings. He saw a plate of
delectable sweets, a relaxed Sunday morning, the thousand bucks he received
every month and his “glorious” past. Amidst all this, the small matter of a broken
outline on the floor signaled the end of his chore. He could not help himself
from smiling, and trying to find that smile in his reflection.
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Half past seven. At least two hours before he could find peace.
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