Footloose

When on the threshold of inner change, it is important neither to look back (for regret, nostalgia, retrospection or such hindsight activities) nor leap at what’s in store. Today, I hurt someone very dear in this pendulum pandemonium. In my own dash to make it to clarity as early as possible, I bypassed my friend’s foresight rooted in present. I hope my friend, as always, lugs me along on this road to recovery.

Well, road reminds me of yesterday, when I took to it deliberately, on foot. Considering that I almost live out of my automobile, walking across two blocks (from Sector 8, KFC parking lot to Sector 9 HDFC Standard Life) with an intimidating signal to cross, it was a big deal. I would like to push a medical reference here. Though I have come to believe that my legs cannot carry me too far, the doctor thinks otherwise and often chides me for not taking advantage, as a walker, of Leisure Valley (Sector 10), which is hardly a furlong from where I live.

Cloudiness made it a light choice as I almost glided from the parking to the pavement, over the iron railing, across the slip road and onto the divider when I heard a woman calling. She was coming from the opposite side. I ignored her grand command in the first instance, having habitually ignored catcalls, only to look at her as she again shouted, “Ladki”.

The ‘title’ of address put me off so terribly that I turned away and hurried. But she caught up and fell in step with me, though it meant backtracking for her. With little choice left, I looked at this bulky ‘ghagra-choli’ clad woman with wisps of grey on temples. She carried an equally big sack. She could not have been a rag picker, for she wore chunky silver jewellery and was absolutely tidy. Even as I looked at her meekly, she refused to mellow down. I could do nothing but run, which I did making the men on the other side of the road leave everything and take notice of me.

Having covered a good rough patch half running, half brisk-walking, I did not turn back to have a look at the woman again. The air-conditioned interiors of HDFC Standard Life put my pulse in place. To my surprise, the premium renewal of policy that I had been dreading for almost four months, did not take more than four minutes. My bank phantom was actually a friendly man at the help desk. And I realized, as I stepped out in the heat again, that the woman I ran away from was a phantom from my childhood. My grandfather used to tell a tale about a woman who had the strength to toss all bad kids into her sack and carry them on her back to an unknown world.

My piggy ride was over long ago. The woman had grown old too. But phantoms are ageless. The entire episode, I believe, was initiated by a ghost, a fear that if I steer my new vehicle into the choc-a-block parking lot of Sector 9, it’s bound to bear a scratch!