Night Crawler
It was a night, when the moon shone brightly. The clouds playing their part, as a chaperone – monitoring the activities of the moon, but the moon was relentless in its charade.
We decided to walk. Let the city take over our legs and give it a closer shot at infiltrating and penetrating our lungs with its lingering soul. We wanted to experience and soak in the Delhi which moved, but the one which moved at a slower and a much less frantic pace than its sun-lit cousin. Cousin because this city, the one which slithers to life once the day light vanishes is a different creature compared to its less menacing relative.
Trudging along, running, jumping, hopping, sometimes on green – sometimes on black, sometimes over dogs – sometimes over people. We proceeded towards our goal. The wetness of the city, settling on our lips and creeping to our toes. The collective movement of limbs, forgave each and every intrusion, the intrusion of orange light, shielding us from the benign moon-shine or the sound of the city, which bounced off each tree, building and pavement and refused to diffuse in the dark alleys of the night.
As the sun took rest, the moon brought out the remnants which had drowned in the vast pool of light through the day. Like water, when drained isolated and sacrificed its contents to the mercy of the outside world.
One such remnant, sacrificed and flushed out by the city, spitted into the night, left for display to the outside world, was impatiently waiting for us to collect him outside the National Gallery. He was packaged in a black and yellow chequered loin cloth and did not have a receipt or a manufacturing date on him. Nevertheless, amongst the collective motion of limbs, we forgave his lack of authenticity and reluctantly accepted him in spite of his dubious nature.
There were wailings of him belonging to another planet, diseased he must be, definitely the victim of loss, or yes, probably running in a parallel universe. Yes! That must be it! He definitely slid through the layers of parallel existence.
He held no stick and wore no glasses, but he faintly resembled a man who lived decades ago. Like that man, he too walked barefoot, in loin-cloth, seeking liberty and crushing attachment, with a sense of purpose which mostly only he understood alone, but the difference was, that this man was the follower instead of the followed.
What is higher living? Is it detachment from material objects, renouncing belief, stuffing belongings, stripping identity or walking barefoot? I don’t know, we didn’t know, he didn’t know. What he knew was that he wanted to walk. He wanted to walk alone but at the same time he wanted to explore a sense of belonging. After all, even the Mahatma was a human being.
We were the axis and he was the object; we were the star and he the satellite. He kept yo-yoing back to us; oscillating back and forth, from the road to the pavement, from between cars to between us, shifting places and changing roles.
His sense of trust, in the living, in this life was envious. There was a sense of anarchy inside his head which can only sprout from supreme confidence in life. Constantly testing life, fate, god, even chance, by standing in the middle of the road with a rock balanced over his head. We behaved like sheep being driven by him, laughing, sometimes out of fear and sometimes out of disbelief.
Probably he actually knew what liberty really meant. Laced with irony, singing patriotic songs, there might be a possibility of the late Mahatma turning in his grave.
There were names of all kinds, probably he was stoned, cocaine – maybe? A nomad? Definitely disturbed, some disorder, a ghost! Whatever he was, he showed us what is actually meant to be free.
And, oh yes! His name was Devender.
- Shashank Mohan
Shashank is an avid reader and an exploring writer. He likes to travel and ends up struggling to capture the beauty of a moment in his camera. He is a lawyer by profession. He is also the co-founder and editor of ‘Gratis’, a website that publishes short stories on a quarterly time interval. http://gratis.org.in
He was a part of the Moon Walk on the night of 20th July.