Déjà vu

My watch showed 21st December, I remember, it was the last year of the first millennium. By 8 pm, Colaba’s bustle had gained new fuel, for the final hours of the year were just few days away, and Christmas was at hand. Amongst white foreigners and stoned black Africans, Indian faces were alternated, if not rare. My walk towards Churchgate station was as subtle as on any other day. An empty cigarette pack remained in my pocket, I wondered and turned to a cigarette shop at the near corner, and asked for some peace of mind.

That first drag of smoke always builds a screen against the noisy crowd, but there remained far away in my head a little boy’s cry, till it was loud enough to urge a search. He sat there on the stairs of an old windowed structure, in clean clothes, a little boy, with a letter in his hand, oh but he stopped his whimpers when he looked up at me. With a candy between my fingers, I sat down beside him, and offered “Do you like mango flavor?”

“Why should elders fight like little children?” he asked me, took the candy and busied himself, leaving me occupied with my own contemplation. And then in some sudden boyish eagerness, he was on his feet. Happiness of an unusual kind glowed on his lips and I stood up, but he ran past me. Frozen, I turned around and watched the boy scamper away, and jump up to a woman who twinkled delight in her eyes. “Mom, I met a man who looked like dad.” He said. But the woman turned around, smiles vanished from her lips at his words and she started walking, dragging the kid behind him.

His little letter stayed in my hand, and I unfolded its crooked childish folds. It had nothing but a broken nursery rhyme devoid of completion, which the little boy had written. I read it with fascination and glee, my eyes following the little curves of the little one’s writing, only to be woken up by a burnt finger and a finished cigarette.

With a hand clutching at the letter in my pocket, I started again, trying to leave some thoughts at the cigarette shop but I didn’t escape with much success. Lost I was thus, but something collided lightly against my leg and I looked on, down the street where, a few feet away, stood a man who stared at my direction, not towards me, but past me. Frozen, I turned around and watched a little boy scamper away, and jump up to a woman who twinkled delight in her eyes. “Mom, I met a man who looked like dad.” He said.

I looked back at the man, who was all but lost in a little letter, which he had opened. I took my own letter from my pocket and started walking towards him, and that was when he woke up from his thoughts for a cigarette burned his fingers. I showed the letter I had in my hand, and he showed his own. His letter had nothing but a broken nursery rhyme, yet it continued from where it had ended in mine.