Old man and the sea...

2nd Oct 2009, 12 34 PM

There’s this top up shop just below my apartment and for some reason that seems to be the only shop within 5 km of my house on either side here in Goa.The shop owner is an elderly man, probably in his late sixties. I see him there every day, clad in his checked cotton shirt ( it is always checks!) and bermudas, his grey hair neatly set just about two inches above his forehead. Bespectacled, with a broad nose and small eyes, he brings a smile to my face everytime I see him.

Looks like the shop has been there for ages now .It’s as if the people in my society have learnt to live with the basics like bread, jam, milk and soap and the other limited provisions that the shop provides... for I don’t see how and why the shop uncle would have changed one bit in the many years that he’s been selling.
I see him every day opening the small shop at 6 30 am in the morning, with tentative hands, with the stray dog galloping and barking excitedly next to him and jumping at every stranger who passes by. And in the evenings I see the shop uncle again, sitting on that chair with the dog next to him on the floor, in a small room just inside the shop.

I have started greeting him these days as I leave for my bus stop early in the morning. When I go to him to ask for my weekly coffee packet and bread, he would slowly and carefully take out tiny carry bags and most meticulously pack each of the items and make sure that he ties up the bags like he were giving me the most precious jewels. Often times when I am in a hurry and want him to just hand it over to me, he would look at me almost admonishingly and I decide to show some semblance of patience till he finishes his job with perfection.

I get a little worried when I do not see the shop open a couple of times in the morning while taking my usual route to the bus stop, but there he is in the evening, every evening, on the same chair, looking into nothingness ahead, with the dog sitting next to him on the floor. He waits patiently for his customers day after day. With so many boys sitting outside his shop, smoking and drinking the occasional chai from his place, it amazes me how he just sits there with a content look on his face and looks right through them, at the sea right across the road…

Life need not be as rushed and demanding all the time. I am trying hard but that kind of peace with oneself is hard to get. I wonder what it takes …

The shop uncle on that chair in the shop, with the dog sitting next to him, looking across the road into the sea… the picture always tells me something…