That thing that you do...

The day closes and the dogs are hungry. Until a car drives up. Unloading from it’s boot a meal that’s been cooked just for them. Just one of the many stops this girl makes. Giving the friendly neighbourhood strays their sustenance. Somewhere else laws are being passed. Laws that limit the freedom of your dog. A rule that says he has to be on a leash if he is in a public space. But this girl loves dogs in all shapes and sizes. She has a few medicines in her pocket. If a ear is infected a few drops are administered. The dogs know her well. Pavlovs whistle is replaced by the sound of her car engine. She does’nt find favour with most people. Who think stary dogs are a nuisance. Until their barking scares away a midnight visitor who wants their Blaupunkt car stereo. Or the junkie who thinks walking away with a manhole cover is free enterprise. It’s tough being a dog. There are fewer spaces which have mud and trees. Lamp posts and car wheels have to make do. The traffic is an obstacle course. But you know there is a doggie god when a car drives up and someone who really loves you, feeds you.
And so it goes. With the old man who has a pavement class on Carter Road. Old. Very. Probably is due VRS from VRS. Each morning. Children from nearby building sites. Sitting before the sea trying to master their A’B C’s . The O for Orange obscured by an early morning walker. No it’s not O for Parrot the old man say’s. They have only a little time before the rising sun hits their stretch of the pavement . Till tomorrow morning then.
When another day will dawn and let him once more do that thing that he does.

I have a dream...

In the CHS we live in there’s a kachra walla. We also have a paperwallah, a doodwalla, a bhaji walla, a jaripurana walla, a machi walli, and so on and so forth… And CHS for the unenlightened is Co-operative Housing society. Which means we spend three hours debating about wheter the water pump should be switched on at 7.00 am every morning or 7.01.
Our kachra wallas name is Sonu. His is a hereditary profession. His parents are in the same line of work. Between them they have the neighbourhood covered. Every morning he shows up at our door. Lugging a big plastic drum. Gathering everything we don’t want. From yesterdays banana peels to empty Old Monk bottles. He finishes his rounds and then hands over the days collection to his wife. Who does the sorting. Of all the dry goods. Old plastic bags in one pile. Paper in another. Bottles. Wire. Old shoes. The dead gold fish. Just kidding. The dead goldfish’s fate is inextricably linked to yesterdays banana peels and the sucked empty bones of the paya curry. There’s a market for everything. Cassettes, odd socks, the cardboard carton the new fridge came in, dead batteries, chipped glasses, both drinking and ocular.
Sonu is way ahead of the BMC with it’s Clean Mumbai campaign. He was segregating from when segregation was what Martin Luther King was fighting against. The actual collection pays him little. The recycling is what brings home the bacon. Or the aloo paratha. He now has a mobile phone. He gave me the number in case of 'Emergency'. It is an emergency when Sonu does’nt show up. And the goldfish’s mate has also died out of loneliness.
Sonu is green. In the truest sense of the word. With a rating the Exxons and the Union Carbide’s will never achieve. Even in their dreams.