Kulfiwallah

There he was again. Amidst life on earth, a speck of dust, a blip, a grain of sand. The kulfiwallah walks into the street like he had countless times before.

The same soft jingle, the same rectangular arch, hoisting the name of his moving establishment over a black pot draped with a red cloth.

He looks the same. No. He looks the same!

He keeps coming from an unknown place and disappearing down the street each evening only to reappear the next day.

Day in, day out.

Times, mutinies, 09/11, 26/11, economic meltdowns, World Cup victories, marriages, divorces, deaths, births, careers, pandemics, growths, developments, regressions, governments; nothing seems to affect him.

30 years on, he looks the same. The pace of his cart is the same and of course the taste of that perpetual kulfi is the same. 

About 25 years ago, a game of lingorcha was being played on the same street. It was March, the middle of the exam season. But this boy couldn’t care less. He wasn’t the one to study till the last minute or worry about the exam the next day.

All he longed for were the contents of that pot. For him the kulfiwallah was a magician. He had tasted the kulfi when one of his friends had been generous enough to buy two, and it had tasted heavenly.

But his mother’s stares and his father’s ‘economics of it’ explanation were enough for him to see the magician off.

As the kulfiwallah strutted past their game, the boy and him looked longingly at each other, as two lovers being torn apart by forces beyond their ken.

Years on, the boy forgot this presence. The city changed along with the street. It hosted many different and bigger houses.

Half of a generation had passed away. Half of the one which played lingorcha on the street had moved on, seeking greener pastures elsewhere.

Some of them, now pot-bellied, grey haired, bald, saggy-breasted, heavy-assed, with new age diseases, linked with each other from all corners of the globe. Once in a super while.

They exchange notes on their new lives, new conclusions, better rewards, unfortunate turns, apathy and crudeness of the world and sometimes lost innocence.

Eyes sunk deep in their sockets in wisdom or resignation, they touch upon everything humans could fathom. From Trump to toilets.

None knows any better though and none registers or ever will register the kulfiwallah.

He is a challenge to the passage of time. A humble monstrosity that stands in the way of ever-changing events and circumstances.

He defies age, status, judgement, ambition, progression, regression, lethargy, ineptitude or hierarchy.

If someone were to keep a record of the shade and the number of hair on his head over a period of 30 years, the colour and count would be the same.

On the same street, I finish my class this evening and look into the silence of the street for a moment of calm.

And lo! There he was.

I talk to him as he came in front of me. Buying a kulfi for myself, I said, “Bhaiyya, you might not remember, on this very street, there was a boy who longed to eat this very elusive kulfi of yours.”

“Today, that boy is all grown-up and has sought life in many ways. Sometimes on his own and sometimes dictated by others. Change has been the only constant in his life. Unlike you.”

“But he never once did think of you. Why would he?” I questioned the air more than him.

As if he didn’t hear me at all, the kulfiwallah goes, “Bhaiyya, somewhere on this street there used to be a ‘Sir’ who ran a small tuition class.”

This time, as if I didn’t hear him, I go again, “You know, that boy can eat as many kulfis as he wants today. But he will not; for reasons he is still not convinced about.”

The kulfiwallah went on, “I could have bought a small place for myself, close to this place, all those years back. Today, it is impossible, just as that small sum seemed 25 years ago. So, I go on, in the same way Bhaiyya. The only way known to me, the only life I can live.”

I smiled, “We all have our grudges and unlived lives to live. But do you see this place and that old man behind me?” I pointed to my old man.

That is the same ‘Sir’ you were talking about and this is the same place only transformed, unlike you.

And I guess, you know by now who that little boy from the street is?”

The kulfiwallah smiled and off he went jingling for an eternal-th time, down the street.