The Beggar

Leisure and love are oddly transfixed in a subtly entangled web of their making for town-dwellers. When I asked Smita if she was free on this fateful Saturday when I was relieved of my hosting duties (because my lingering kins from village had finished their this and that in the city and temporarily divested themselves of the need for a shelter in my one-room rented abode) and had no menacing office routine to attend to, I expected the day to be bright and burly. For one thing when I telephoned her, the aanar shrubs out in the neighbor's swayed in the wind exuding all lushness and the April sun tickled their skins. With all her chutney-ed intermingling of acceptance and hesitation I bided my part of coaxing and reasonable and yet tacit acknowledgment of her being a coy and humble girl. Of course, she wasn't the GIRLFRIEND, even as she was to be so outspoken! And she agreed to meet at the peddlers' pavement of New Baneshwor. At ten o'clock, 'sharp'. She knew well than anyone what a usual renegade on my own self-set appointments I was.

By the bus stand where there was no tarmac and freshly dried mud I stood smiling at her as she came in a whish of green kurta, the silver pattern of which hugged the neckline that plunged modestly, and a mass of shiny black hair waving softly, that backgrounded her smiling face. I had the knack of not being too cool to not compliment her on what a show she was and had the levity to be sufficiently conscious of my dusty shoes. Smile reciprocating smile and painting all that communicated we walked along the pavement. Now brushing hands, now dashing our sides. Thus she tick-tocked and thus I shuffled alongside on the pavement.

I was beginning to appreciate how smooth her curves were and rue over how less I had invested myself in knowing her fully for more than a year when I did something utterly out of the ordinary. On the pavement, right before our feet, lay a man sprawled on his back, his leper's cured but amputated stumps of limbs banging the air as flies courted his lips and nostrils from where a hoarse breath issued tentatively and faithfully. The two-rupee coin clanged and rattled with the entire furor it could manage on the wretch's bowl. Smita's expression was vague and unintelligible to my ardent eyes as I rose from my semi-stoop and insinuated my companion to walk along. But she discarded the reticent coquettishness all in a go and ran to the nearest store as fast as her feminine grace and exacting stilettos could allow. I tried not to look baffled or overtly surprised as I saw her come back , her forehead furrowed with strange concentration, with a tetrapack of apple juice cozily grasped in her hand. My first thought was if the pack wasn't cooled in the freezeer, as she penetrated the eager sucking pipe briskly into the pack; my second thought was what had come over me to drop an inconsequential two-rupee coin into the pitiable bowl when I was an avowed unbeliever on the virtues of miserly and egoist charity as she stooped comfortably on the stilettos extending the pack's now suck-able protrusion to the sickly lips of the man; and my third thought was I'd better not think and listen to what my companion , the reputed counselor for a law firm, was cooing to the man to get the metabolic deed done; and finally, I think I succeeded in not thinking anymore.

Stooping down myself I tried to make myself seem amused, and interested and appreciative, all at once. She smiled to me a perfect smile and I had to avert  my eyes—allow me to say all that I felt—from the excessive radiance and try employing my hands to comfort the man whose pain I could least detect, let alone feel. The helpless man was pliant, muttered a few things, and stirred his lips always showing his musty teeth-line as I raised him up on his lap with my hand pressing forth on his meager back. His yellowed garments were a funny smelling swaddle and his head was curiously shaved, it must be a couple of days back. I was synchronized to the movements of the man as if a shaman in tune with a fellow soul: he looked at the benefactress and I looked at her, he shuffled in a slight way easing himself on the cold seat and I eased on my crouched feet, he looked patronized and I felt led and cast into a role all of a sudden. He sucked hesitantly, gulped and his eyes bulged out. A fly adamantly inspected his brows failing to make him twitch in response. I was subtly informed of all inner tremulations and seismology of his physiognomy my palm being the detector placed over his back. Next gulp and he heaved up, a tumult arose, settled down tranquilly, erupted splashing out all the guts of his choked sinus into the solicitous hand of the benefactress. She must have been disgusted. I could only see the bulk of hair shaking like a carpet being dusted with a stick as she wiped with her kerchief the despoiled faculties, her head bent low in concentration. The wretch wore a deadpan expression except for the physical anguish, or it was an overwhelming projector of physical anguish sheer.

 He was upright and statuesque, my detector failing to record a single vibration that was distinct for a full minute. Then there was a buzz, a squeezed breath escaped like chiseled wood out of a sawmill as the nostrils flapped open and immediately I could detect distinct thuds but those were my nervous palpitations. Shaking Smita by the hand, I stammered out—" He needs a doctor!"

The storekeeper whose store Smita had recently patronized came over to see what the fuss was about. A few pedestrians and loiterers gathered about as I frantically rubbed on the beggar's back. Impatient that the crowd was getting bigger and encroaching on my space, I looked over for Smita who came with the shopkeeper directing a cab. The corpulent shopkeeper instinctively bent over to help me lift up the man and get him on the backseat. As I slapped the door shut I saw the alms bowl with the coin and the fallen tetra pack flowing out in a rivulet of yellowish fluid like the the blood of so much crushed insects. I put my shivery hand over Smita's shoulder next to her bare nape. It must have conveyed her something calming for she turned back from the front seat beside the driver and gave me a look that bespoke—" I'm okay".  The wheezing was horrendous as each breath of our patient overhauled a new wave of fright and assurance on us. I said to the driver after a ride of about five minutes," It's okay. Just get into the left driveway and drop us by the emergency entrance." I virtually ran carrying the man as his limbs sagged and swung. On the bed I found its neat blankness mirroring my own predicament. I felt pure horror, its sally rising up from my bowels like a flowing tide. As in a dream, I came to realize, I answered to the nurse, "I found him on the street. He choked . . . Will he be alright?" In sheer contrast, she was calmly taking the vital statistics. The doctor came and said after checking his chest— "It’s a temporary blockage of the windpipe. A case of exacerbating cough.  Not much to worry about."

It was surprising I had almost forgotten Smita was standing in the room too, watching meekly from the door. I saw an Eve just conscious of the sin she had committed in ignorance. I felt like Adam myself. And then I felt displeased with myself for having thought so. I went to her but didn't stop by, gave her to feel I meant to lead her out of the room. She followed. I clasped her hand tightly that swung tantalizingly subdued by my side. It calmed down as my confidence absorbed all the palpitations like a shock-absorber and flowed out into hers or it happened the other way around, and we were calm. I sat by her on the anteroom seat and smiled at her. She giggled, showing the perfectly leveled teeth released from braces a few months back. I remembered how crooked my fangs looked like. Her damp fingers slithered on my palms. I released them with a heavy heart.  Then I felt a subtle grip and my hand rose high and then a pair of lips brushed against the fingers and I heard a gentle smack and the limb went limp sensuously, for a while. I resented with the assurance of her solidarity the presence of people even on a Saturday, Why should anyone fall ill on a holiday?

The nurse came by and asked me to come in. "The patient has coughed and it's alright." The Patient was seated propped on by two pillows and it was hard to judge his expression. More now than ever I felt poor at reading faces. He grunted and I took it for his gratitude.

"The patient is alright. It wasn't even necessary to bring him here in the first place. It is natural with street folks. They overcome dust and damp. We can't keep him here for long."

Smita paid at the counter despite my remonstrance. Between us, she was always the first to go making short work of bills. While I was looking at the prescription of a cough expectorant matching it with the name my father had been administered to last winter, it dawned on me that the man might be a deaf-mute. Lo! My job was done! What was I to do with him?

I tickled Smita and rushed her out to the passage and dispensed of the notion. Her reaction was one that intends to buy time, explanatory.

"You mean he can't talk and we won't be able to take him home?"

"You don't have to be so loud. What do you think we ought to do?"

I pleaded her to think a way out of this mess.

"There could be a police involvement. It doesn't bode well to get stuck up so." This was a caveat we couldn't ignore.

I thought hard and furtively and restlessly. Not so, I only exacerbated my anxiety. Smita lumbered to the toilet and I remembered what my late grandmother always said," If you don’t know what lies ahead, don’t let go, but wait and watch. The problem might dissipate on its own accord." I could give it a try. I felt a smile coming to my parched lips and suppressed it, but it resurfaced and poured purposefully down Smita's ears making her smirk shrugging, with a little dismay. That incredulity brought forth an urge to say," It's you with your c h a r i t y and s n o b b e r y that we are in such a fix. Appreciate my plan or get lost." But I thought better than to forget my own former assiduity at gallantry. I was the one to initiate an apostasy and dispense of the coin. What had gone over my head then? Was it an act of such consequence? Charity couldn't just be so manageable, coming down to be merely a paltry pecuniary dispensation. But it was no use brooding and self-sermonizing. In a way having her constantly at my side made me feel it would all go well. She should have felt that way too. "Let's do it," she said at last. The nurse passed by us eyeing us just meaningfully.

 "I'll bring a taxi at the entrance. You see through that the man is ready." Then, I ran towards the exit.

The taxi driver was a mere boy barely over his teens and his eyes darted funnily below the wooly mass of his straw-streaked hair as he took stock of the trio he was to dispose off. We had a deal agreed on and paid on advance he naturally wouldn't make any inane remarks. The Chabahil junction was choking with traffic just as we left the Heritage Hospital. "To Baneshwor, just by the bus stand," I repeated, half mumbling, half making sure the driver understood clearly. Now and then the boy darted off a glance or two at Smita, by his side, and it irritated me. To keep me involved in more serious matters the Beggar at my side sneezed for the umpteenth time letting go of all that had bothered him for so long. I took out my kerchief and wiped first his nose, then my hand where there had befallen intermittent drizzles. I looked at Smita who was watching me wipe my sleeve and said," And you were serving him juice right out of the icebox!" She giggled. My hand kept on holding the swaying guest firmly by the shoulder. His face was a veritable landscape as varied as Nepal, the complexion rustic like dung-spattered paddy farm soil in the monsoon, the ears protruding like listless jut-outs of forlorn hillsides carved out by brutal landslides, open to sight and yet inaccessible to comprehension, the runny nose a sore city river. When I laid him down on the pavement, he stirred a little adjusting himself, shutting himself out to the world. I felt a pang of guilt. His eyes were facing the sky and were unaffected by the bright bluish dazzle. He seemed to be at home there, somewhere high and above, and with his breath now normal and limbs slowly rising up again, he seemed to be nullifying all that had happened in the past one and  a half hour. We didn't exist for him. It seemed no one and nothing did. I couldn't dare to look into his zenith. I was getting paranoid of these sentiments. It made me feel so low and vacant. The gathering crowd didn't help either. The shopkeeper had taken care of the bowl and brought it back to its proper place.  "He was choking on cough," I said to him and no one. He nodded absent-mindedly. Smita handled me away and it all felt so unreal that I wrung my hand free from her clutch wondering if it would really come off. "Hey, one can only do so much!" she said. "Yes, Yes", I replied.

The procession of students protesters that had caused a traffic congestion at Chabahil had arrived with all its gusto into the New Baneshwor square. From across the wide street I watched pedestrians flood into the pavement as the traffic was squeezed away by the oncoming tide of demonstrators. There was a clearing in the stream of passers-by where the man lay like a glade in a forest, a calm oasis in the desert of conundrum. The clearing disobeyed, wouldn't care if it were to be encroached upon or trampled, but as long as it was there, there was to be a recognition of being there. In the square in no time speeches began to  be delivered and victimizations gushed out amok. The sun beat the air to bear hot sentiments and render discordant rumblings momentous. I felt dizzy.

"Let's to to some place peaceful," I said.

"I know this restaurant just nearby where they have acoustics. Come with me."

We asked for two glasses of lassi. We made no use of sucking pipes at first, then laughed at the stupidity and slurped up the frothy white content to the lees.

"What a day! But I wonder where he comes from everyday. Who he stays with." Smita prodded my now recovered calm and hers too, surely.

"Wait and watch. Things will straighten themselves out. Remember? It's not over yet." I reminded her.

"Yes, I know." She smiled mischievously and shyly and turned to the big glass window. We could see right down to the pavement.

"You thought out in advance," I clarified my edification like a schoolboy.

We sat there chatting of odd things, cracked jokes about our colleagues, made snickering digs at he neighboring table occupants, made constant services to our gluttony palates and matched it with the proportionate occasions for restroom. The city lights began to show. The demonstrators pilfered away and the square was swept clean with the routine of diurnal cycle. The Beggar still lay there on his back, an overturned creature, amidst the fading music of humanity. We walked down the stairs, lazed out onto the street, gravitated to the opposite pavement and there we saw, like a shadow, like a moving shroud a nondescript figure emerge out of nowhere, lift up the vessel, pouch its contents, lug over the pacific seeker into a van and drive him away. But I felt I was mistaken. While the van drove away, there still had been a mass of dark opacity inversely prostrate in a form that could well be compared to a silent prayer, there, right there, on the now cool pavement. I couldn't see the end. There could be so many endings that weren’t endings. There was a crevice if an alley just beside. It could have been a small den there or elsewhere or nowhere. But I could always run across the street and find out with a close view. But I couldn't do that. Why should a man do that essentially, sensibly?

"What did you see?" Smita questioned.

"I'm not sure. Did you see him lugged off on the van?"

"You didn't pay attention to details, did you? To what really happened? You watched and watched and forgot, didn't you? That you did."

"Yes, I think so. But  . . . how do you say that, I mean, how do you know?"

"I was watching you all the time. It was no use watching across. We would never see much in such darkness. I love to study the man I love."

"Oh!"

The air was pleasantly cool, the leaves of ashoka trees rustled with the breeze and it was nice to have a girlfriend who said she loved her man before he did.  But this boy was momentarily perplexed and spoke out to her as if memorizing for an examination," I love you too. I've got to marry you. That I've got to do." And believing in it, all of a sudden, hugged her, there on the pavement feeling all the calm of the sky pour down on him, on every palpitation throbbing by in his veins and hers, declared in tremulous release," Oh! I could take on all lies with it."