It was an evening of another day of the world continuing on in its motion. It was a busy market road, people walking by being aware of other people and vehicles passing. The shopkeepers were busy attending to customers. A person was talking to his known another waiting for hers.
Mr Bhat walked amidst the people, carrying a bag of groceries hanging on his shoulder, it wasn’t much heavy, but the walk was long, something he had decided to do, to manage his habit of getting out with his electric scooter for even the most minute reasons.
Mr Bhat decided to cross the road before crossing the intersection and as he proceeded a little, he noticed a bike rushing towards him Mr Bhat immediately stepped back. A young man with his new bike, fast, happy, excited, careless.
Mr Bhat looked a little irritated and then safely crossed, however at the second road, he was more than half way when a car approached, much slower than the bike, so Mr Bhat moved right to move away from the car’s path but the car also turned to that angle coincidentally to avoid Mr Bhat. Mr Bhat tried going the other way, but the same happened, until the car came to a stop and Mr Bhat sighed and walked away quietly.
Mr Bhat walked slowly at first, then picked up pace and then rushed inside his house when he was near. Apart from this little brush with misshapen, Mr Bhat felt like it was not a good day for him. There were things out there to get him. Like the hot cup of coffee that slipped out of his colleagues’ hand in office and the spilling coffee steaming to its stretch fell beside Mr Bhat. The pile of books at home fell as Mr Bhat was going to pass by, but Mr Bhat partly blamed himself for almost slipping on the wet stairs at the office.
These are very confusing days to go by, the mind could be playing tricks on us, or it is just a bad string of coincidences or perhaps as Mr Bhat thought it was about some otherworldly power out to get him. He went to bed early that day.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
