monalisa

Yesterday at the end of the day, I wanted to read something before sleeping. I didn’t have any fiction books with me, at least any that doesn’t need much labour to get through. I was scrolling through some poetry accounts and such, looking for a perfect poem. I wondered what if there were blogs that had a slice of life from somewhere that is worth reading. But then I thought, what if I write something - try to describe one person from my world each day, someone who I interact with most days in some way. I could think of many, most of whose names I don’t know. I could use this as a way to remember them. Let me see how this experiment goes. 

First one at random who came to mind is a cashier at the modern “chayakkada” (tea shop) at the office. It is a re-creation of the roadside tea shops, with its thatched roof, built with dried coconut leaves and bamboo, with posters of old malayalam and tamil movie on the walls, glass shelves displaying the snacks, chalk board listing out the day’s menu. When I am in office, I go there at lunch to get a “sambhaaram” (buttermilk). Most days I see a lady at the counter, she is courteous, with a sense of amusement in her face. She has pleasant demeanour, a round face, with a white hair cap, wearing a brown uniform shirt. This is the reason I remember her - I can’t quite place whether she is smiling or not. It is a kind of amused expression of someone overhearing a group having fun and joking around, not quite participating in the discussion, but happy to be there, just the same. When there is no one in the queue, she helps the servers inside with the pre-prepared lime juice, sherbets, lime soda, sambhaaram and the like. Last day, a few friends were ahead of us and they were customizing their orders - lime juice without ice, lime soda with ice etc - each unique, confusing them. My order was comparatively straight forward, I paid and told the chettan at the shop what I wanted and it turned out just my sambhaaram alone was missing. She had gone inside to help out with the orders and rushed back out to punch in my missing sambhaaram, apologetic about why that happened. 

That’s it. Nothing magical, just a random person, in my universe. With a smile that is not quite a smile, but just happy to help.