Now these guys were really hard workers; I’d see them bright and early at that stall of theirs since dawn waiting for the papers to be dropped, or going out and collecting the magazines, and even renewing the subscriptions to their customers who wanted what they did, delivered to their doorsteps, which is what they would be more than happy to do if it got them more clients… so they were good for a couple of years, until the uncle who had given them the money to start up their venture passed away. I think that was the only time I’d ever seen any other emotion on that boy’s face (who must’ve been my age) other than happiness; he looked completely devastated.
A few days later, the two brothers got the help they needed; their parents were now moving to the city to start working with them. The mother would sit at the stalls in the evenings, with the son (the younger one who was around my age) sitting at it in the mornings and afternoons, with the other son who had now started his own business ferrying people to and fro their offices in the cars that he would rent out for such services… and the Father, well, he would be there all day, making sure everything was going as smoothly as it could, and he would take care of all the flowers which would be sold to the people and used in their daily prayers and rituals, sometimes even their festivities.
Yesterday was the second time I saw another kind of an emotion on that boy’s face… no, not loss or fear or sadness, but it was a kind of remorse—he looked, well, defeated in a way… his dad who was standing beside him, he was the one with the tears running down his cheeks, and his mother was trying to have her voice heard in all of the commotion that was taking place to make sure that everyone knew how wrong this was what was happening to them. (((A few minutes ago, the cops had just arrived and bulldozed all the illegal structures that they could find, to the ground, and there was nothing anybody could do or say to stop them)))
The Bakery that I’ve been sitting at for the past 10 years, started out as not as popular as it has gotten now, and I’ve become quite close to the brothers who own it… so much so that I’ve been introduced to the third one recently who runs his own business but has now joined his other two brothers to help them out whenever he can. I went over to him and I asked him if I could sit down, and then asked him if he remembered once when he’d asked me why I’d come there and just sit at a table and watch out at nothing, and pointed him to the man, and told him—that’s why… I think I’ve been seeing that guy for 10 years now, and this is what ends up happening to him. That’s why I come here, to see what this life we live is really about.
[[[HAPPY ENDING: The man looked at me and laughed, and said—oh, don’t worry—he’ll be back on his feet in no time. He has 2-3,000 people depending on him every day. You think this is the first time his stalls gotten demolished… and the next day, as foretold, he was standing right there, doing what he used to, with his son. There’s something to be said about the HUMAN SPIRIT here, but I don’t want to ruin it by trying to put it into words. So just make your own assumptions. G’night.]]]
