The best smile in the world

Every evening ..come 7 pm. I am on my way to the gym give or take a half hour. I live on a crowded street in North Bombay where the air is filled with this magical combination of dust, smoke, cries of vegetable vendors, a sea of people, car horns and street lights.

Bombay's own sunset boulevard...

In my eyes anyways.

I drive down the slope from my apartment complex where it meets this heavily crowded street and make a sharp left to crawl in bumper to bumper traffic once again. Its an art and a science - making that left and then quickly getting into the right lane to make a U turn. It takes me atleast 2 traffic lights before I make it past that stretch and am truly on my way to battle with the calorific demons.

I call this the make or break stretch.

Everyone knows that the pundits say that the key to a life without any cares is to be so busy that you do not have any time to reflect at all. But what can you do - when you are 30, stuck in a moment with the mind of a writer, the heart of a poet, an unrelenting passion for life, loads of hyper-energy and 20 whole minutes spent thinking in traffic at the end of the day. Everyday.

Its this 15 minute stretch that culminates in many posts on this blog.

Its my 15 minutes - to look at my life from the outside. To look at the world as it sees me on the inside. To sit in silence and observe how slow life in the fast lane actually is and appreciate the moon shining over a shimmering metropolis.

Its my 15 minutes to experience the many conflicting feelings that I am now learning to associate with my journey through life.

The silence only lasts till the traffic signal.

The historians once said that Constantinople was the center of the Universe.

Over summer, I concluded that it was actually Khan-e-Kalili market in Cairo.

However I now conclude that though the above two might actually be true in theory, in sheer practice - the centre of the universe is at a much crazier place - The traffic signal outside my house halfway though my clutch-brake love affair.

Anything you want to analyze from a business, philiosphical, cultural, economic, social, gender perespective - you can at this very spot.

In a matter of seconds, the world descends on you and shatters your thoughts like a million fireworks going up in the sky.

There are people selling balloons, woven mogra gajras, daintly packed sugarcane pieces, books on everyone from Kafka to SRK, halogenic yo-yos, toys, car cleaning rags, Indepedence day flags, hankies with the days of the week on them and what not. Masters of trade and Sellers of hope. Theres beggars and car cleaners and omniously in the dark nooks and corners also the people that control this little trade market and elicit a % from each sale or penny collected.

There is nothing quite like being at this particular traffic light that makes me feel energized and yet guilty at the same time. That makes me realise that I've been a witness and silent party to so much amazing activity but in some ways I am still like my car, rooted in the exact same spot..

Yesterday would have been no different had it not been for a chance bicyclist who cut me off causing me to stop and have to wait for a third light.

Mine was the first car in a million others. As the light turned to a slow burning red, I pulled the handbrake and reached out to see if I had any missed calls on my phone.

Yeah, in the 5 minutes since I left home. Like the world was going to collapse if I didnt pick up my phone. I guess I am just conditioned now. A cyber slave who wears pink nailpaint.

And then I saw him.

He was all of 10 years old, barefoot, with a crazy mop of hair that would have put Lenny Kravitz to shame walking from car to car like he owned the world. He reached a Water Tanker that was waiting at the opposite cross section and engaged in a serious round of negotiation with the two guys perched on top of it. Looks like he won ..because they let him open the tap at the bottom of the tanker and he doused his dusty head in the water, drank some more and proceeded to walk from car to car like a model from a TV commercial wet hair and all.

Meanwhile radio mirchi continued taking potshots at everyone from George Bush to John Abraham. The radio fizzled and crackled and I realised that my radio antenna must not be pulled out. So I rolled the window down and adjusted the antenna.

Before I could blink, small brown hands grabbed the rim of my window.

Fear, Shock and then Annoyance. The triple whammy of ugly emotions looked into laughing piercing black 10 year old eyes. With his other hand he started to wipe my windshield with a rag that was so murky, I bristled and at once felt sad about his age, the situation and his arrogance which would only be decsribed as self protective at its worst.

He tried to bargain for me to let him clean my car and I said no.

We repeated this 3 times. Each time, my no being a little weaker than the prior.

His knowing eyes did not miss anything.

Finally, I tried to push the auto button to roll the windows up and he stopped me, just wouldnt move his fingers.

I yelled at him and he withdrew his hands.

I hit the button but he held my window at the last minute.

Finally - on my third try - I rolled the window up .. only to discover that he had lovingly allowed his dirty brown rag to remain stuck between the glass and my car window.

Now he dramatically, called out to his other friends on the street - and showed them how I had tried to take away his rag.

I could only shake my head and grimace.

I rolled my window down and he grabbed my window again.

I started to shout at him and ended up laughing instead.

I finally signalled my defeat by raising my hands up in the air and resting my head against the steering wheel.

And as I looked at him, he tucked his rag around his neck, leaned over my window and burst out into laughter and smiled at me.

And I could not help but grin back.

And for the briefest of minutes - He wasnt a kid on the street and I wasnt a cynical cosmos questioning car driver.

We were just two random people, who shared a warm moment at a cross road in life ..where we were both waiting for Life to turn on the green light.

And he had only tried to make the wait a little more fun that what it would otherwise be.

It was the best smile in the world.