A window is all

A straight line is hard to come by. It is noble. A mix of curves tied by straight lines may be traits of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Between the fifth and sixth hours, the tarred Link Road stretch between Hotel Aura and St. John Basco Church, approximates a straight line; standing at the Hotel Aura end, the traffic signals breathe and blink; the satisfyingly wide pavements pillared by peepals, copper pods, rain trees arcing into a skylight; down the centre is a hedge with arali flowers, Australian acacia and two peepals, one imposing; traffic, the doodhwala's cycle and sometimes bikes; early morning walkers, take the road, not the pavements; a peepal talls over a street light, is about five years old; have been tracking it from the first shoot. The 90-year old gentleman and his wife, ran the stretch when it was not a road, years ago; they dropped to a walk when the wife broke away; today, the 90-year old gentleman, uses a walker at home and a wheel-chair to sit, says his daughter who is a doctor. Some time ago, Rama and me were friends with the couple; now not. Walked into the dispensary for a BP check up; normal, 120/80, said the surprised doctor; inquired of her father and she had leftover minutes with patients yet to take the long, wooden bench; the dispensary has a painting of a deer to normalise anxious patients. 'The window in his room is framed by a tamarind and rain trees; and Link Road flows by; and he spends staring the window from the wheel-chair,' she said, and added 'he is weak, quite alert.' Nights no sleep. He gazes and gazes, sometimes, lighted by a beam from a car turning into the housing society; he has given up on the internet,TV and newspapers; alerted out of nods in the wheel chair by the yodelling of koyals; mornings in Borivili (W) on Link Road are taken over by koyals, hard to sight; towards the end of March, cattle egrets are booking sites on the the tamarind for nests for the old man to recall the day, when with wife, they booked a nest in the housing society, long ago when there was no Link Road. Afternoons into long snoozes after daughter serves him lunch now cut to dal and rice; 'digestion at 90 is nearly absent,' she says. The only time he is sad is when daughter wades into a i-phone; thats the time he feels lonely, not alone; but none can do without an i-phone, he does not realise; an i-phone is a man for every woman and a woman for every man; that's how it is; when she gets to talking, the old man vibes without leaving the window. Somewhere Albert Einstein has said: A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and violin; what else does a man need to be happy. For old man, A window is all.