Passing

It is a pretty night tonight. The drive back to boulder, I saw white clouds spread across in the distance, spread as if a painter had taken a brush and smudged the sky white and grey and black. There, on one mountain was a really white cloud, the dark underneath and white made a good scene to the eye. It has rained in the evening and there were puddles of water on the apartment complex road. The trees washed in rain seem to shine more brightly in the streetlight; the streetlight continues to burn as the night passes. Soon it will be dawn, the birds will awake, and life will move.

He was probably sixty or more. We used to call him Baba, the name we had picked up the first time we had tea at his stall in second year. His stall was favorite morning and evening haunt for the students. We used to get a cut for two rupees and full for four. Evening, generally my roomie or some friend and I would go hang out there, read newspaper, or discuss. Baba was tall, long faced. He had a flowy white beard, mustache and still had hair on his head. He would normally wear grey full sleeves with shoulder straps, like the armymen. He would always hand out glasses and I thought he wouldn't know who had taken how many. It a was trust based system, I think. He wouldn't talk much, but he was very lively, animated. Sometimes we would get to watch him make tea from scratch, if we had reached early. He would have rolled his sleeves, would throw stuff in his big vessel; soon his arms and forehead would be filled with sweat and he would be making noises. "BRRroooommm". In joy or to entertain his audience, I dont know. Maybe both.

For three years, I must have gone to this place every evening, sat under that huge tree next to this stall while traffic passed by or stood in some other corner, talked with people, argued, listened, laughed. I have forgotten all of that, and it is not a memory which has remained significant. I don't recollect any incidences which happened there barring one, to my surprise. What I can visualize is the evening color, the tall full grown tree and it's roots seen outside the earth, Baba in his grey, making and serving tea, fumes rising from the tea and faces of my friends, people I knew in that time. I can almost see the scene, I just cant go there. It is past.