Pratap was
nothing if not consistent. He had spent every December, the month of Christmas,
and the months preceding it, begging for alms on a street corner, with a bench
close by where he slept. Pratap was dressed in a frayed shirt and shorts, with
a weather worn shawl around his shoulders, to keep the chill out of his bones.
Unfortunately, it was a windy evening and therefore blasts of chill air kept
buffeting his thin body.
But despite
all this, Pratap was happy. He was a happy man and his life hadn’t been able to
steal his smile away from him yet. It was the season for Santa Claus lookalikes
to frequent the shelves of stores and the seats in malls. Green trees were also
being sold starting from 10 rupees per unit and rising up to 85 rupees.
Pratap started
to beg from 6 AM. He noted certain joggers pass him by, and collected five
coins from them. Next came the office goers around 9AM who dropped maybe a
rupee into his bowl. After this, pedestrians strolled by, too busy to notice
Pratap amid the sea of faces and beggars. He had a regular patron however, who
dropped by with five rupees. By 11 AM, Pratap had saved up enough money in
coins to have a loaf of bread and a cup of tea at a footpath tea stall. This
was lunch. He then repaired to his bench and slept a little, before being back
on begging duty at 3 PM. Unfortunately,
he didn’t make too much money for the first four hours, but from 7 PM, the
usual office going crowd returned home and passed his station by, dropping
coins as they went. He also had the night shift workers to look forward to at
this time.
This was
Pratap’s usual routine. But, this story is not about Pratap’s routine, it is
about Christmas. Although so far the only mention of the season has been a
fleeting part of the above paragraph, give me some more time to bring season’s
felicitations to you, my dear reader.
Pratap knew
a little bit about Christmas. It was a season of joy. The passersby used to
give coins more freely during this time and the atmosphere was jovial if not
breathtakingly joyful. However, something unforeseen is going to happen to
Pratap this day. Santa Claus and his reindeer usually looked him over, but
today he would not be cast aside.
The morning
started as usual for Pratap on the twenty fourth day of December. First the
joggers, and then the office crowd marched their beat past him. It was a
Saturday, so the office crowd was a little thin, seeing as a lot of them took
an extended weekend trip to some nearby resort. However, by the time Pratap ate
his lunch at the tea stall, he had a fair amount of money with him. It was not
sufficient for him to have a cup of tea however and he had to contend with just
the half pound loaf of bread.
It was then
that he noticed the dog.
The dog had
snuck up on him from across the street and was wagging its tail at him. He had
a hungry look in his eyes and looked expectantly at Pratap’s loaf of bread.
Pratap tore off a piece and tossed it to him. The dog took it in his mouth and
ran off, before Pratap could change his mind and demand the piece back. Pratap
went to sleep a little hungry, but happy because he had helped a fellow
creature.
When Pratap
woke, evening had started to spread an inky cloak across the sky. He noticed it
was 6PM and he had missed the lunchtime crowd. Pratap swore. He was not a man
of violent temperament but when you are a beggar, lunchtime crowds count for a
decent 10 to 15 rupee intake. He squatted down at his spot and he waited for
people to pass. Some ignored him, others tipped him. He was offered a piece of
cake by a small boy, whose mother was looking the other way. He noticed people
wearing red hats with white tips. Christmas was on the way.
Pratap
begged till 10 PM that night. It got steadily colder. Then the wind started to
blow in chilling bursts of air that buffeted against the beggar sitting cross
legged with his begging bowl before him and a hungry look in his eyes. Pratap
coughed- a wheezing cough- and cleared his throat. He decided to call it a
night. He went to a shop that was still open and purchased a loaf of bread.
Wrapping his shawl tightly around himself he hobbled to his bench. He had just
unwrapped the loaf, when he saw that the dog from the afternoon was back.
Pratap broke
the bread in two. One half he ate. The other half he fed to the dog. He then
shook the crumbs off himself and lay down on the bench. The steel was bitterly
cold against his back, but after about half an hour, it became warm enough to
lie on without discomfort. Pratap slept heavily.
Meanwhile,
up in the sky a fat man in a red outfit with a hat and a sled drawn by
reindeers passed by.
Pratap woke
on Christmas day, chilled to the bone. He yawned, and wrapped his shawl, which
was also his blanket around him once again. He noticed the dog lying curled up
under the bench. It stirred when it heard Pratap move and came up to him and
licked his hands.
Pratap
smiled. He was poor and it was going to be a cold Christmas, but he was not
alone. It would not be a lonely Christmas.
Let us now
repair to yonder church and listen to the service, while our two friends revel
in each other’s company.
The Bilge Master
