Shyama

Bye, Shyama. The Saphale flower vendor walked off three days ago, but me knew it today morning. She was the first Saphale vendor on Yogi Nagar Road. Rama her client, a favoured one. Mornings they chatted. She sat on the road with her flowers - mostly zendu and jaswanti, dhruva grass - her first sitting that many in Yogi Nagar recall was in 1992. 26 years, every day in the morning from Saphale and back to catch the 4 p.m. train from Borivili. In recent times, she diversified into spinach, mooli, methi, drumsticks; a touch moody and who would not be having to squat dusty Yogi Nagar Road; sometimes a broken tooth smile; by 10 she would wind up to take up odd jobs as cleaning shops, dropping children to school. Her husband died drinking leaving Shyama, two daughters and a son. Two months ago she told me of getting her first daughter married to a boy working at Prabhodhan Thackeray Hall in Borivili. Am not sure today of the marriage. She brushed aside inquiries from her regular clients of a waning health. Some of her clients helped with cash when she lost her husband; some stuck to the habit. With her came three more flower ladies and they passed the news. She could not be beyond 50. And three days ago a short tale got over.


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And to get over,  saw on youtube, The Black Cat, a 20 minutes colour film, directed by Bhargav Saikia, based on a Ruskin Bond story. Twice. A Walls Cornetto of a film. Hurrah. Tom Alter as Bond, Shernaz Patel as Miss Bellows the witch, a black cat, a tasty broom (felt like owning it as Tom Alter owns it). Perhaps, thats the way a Bond story is born and ends; the Bond creative act; the old tasty home, a stubborn black cat, seems like Bond's Landour home ....  Alter tap-tapping an yellow typewriter, pulling out the paper, making a ball, stuffing into the waste basket like journalists did when they were typewriters and printing ink. Alter and Bond were good friends and he is like you and me; ha ha ha. Smiled. Did not get up from me the arm chair for a while. Alter's bow away piece .... and is he today with a black cat and a black witch? Bhargav Saikia do more of this. You are sure to have me as an audience.