"Never wash your hands with soap - always use fern and honey."
He said this with so much conviction, I had to laugh. Later, whenever I would wash my hands I would always be conscious of this little detail. It was a confirmation of the oft-unverbalized adage I had come to acknowledge without reserve over the months - people will believe anything said with the right amount of passion. I am surprised how so many people (I'm sometimes guilty of the same sin) lend credence to anyone claiming authority.
Anyhow, with that declaration he started to cross the street, unmindful of the honks, while I hastened behind, pacifying the drivers with elaborate hand gestures and receiving quite unelaborate finger gestures in return. Reaching the other side, he appeared bemused as I reproached his flippancy toward such trivial matters as life and health. I said goodbye and we went our ways.
We met at the subway station. He was a lanky man, probably nearing sixty, dressed like he never grew out of the 60s - long hair, scraggly beard, intensely colorful T shirt, the works. I was listening to Jimi Hendrix's 'Manic Depression', murmuring an awful impression of it with even more terrible air guitar gesticulations. He looked over inquiringly and notified me impishly that he had lost his virginity to that song. Well, that was believable - it was a heady song. He told me he was there in Woodstock when Hendrix played. Unsure whether to believe him, I nodded appreciatively and offered the elaborate, all-occasion adjective - "Nice". I wasn't sure why I was reluctant to believe him. He looked the part. Perhaps what made me wonder was the fact that he was sitting in a padmasana position on the bench and had three cigarettes just chilling in the wild locks of his hair.
We made small talk for a couple of minutes till we heard the prolonged chime of the train in the distance rising in intensity. He got up and asked me why I didn't come along and have a hoagie with him. Well, why not. I had nothing in particular to do in Kolkata anyway, except get a couple of books and maybe catch a nap in the park bench. Maybe it was because I somehow sensed a stark, implicit intelligence in the man in the way he talked, in spite of his appearance and quirky mannerisms. It might have been misplaced intuition, although I later discovered my hunch was spot on.
Half an hour later, we found ourselves in Park Street - hoagies and hot chocolate in hand, sitting in the cold on the sidewalk, giving a street performer moral support. I learned he was a painter by choice, dropping out of college in the early seventies. Divorced twice with children he could not support. He took out a couple of crumpled canvasses from his sling bag and showed me. They were some of the most violently emotional pieces of art I had seen, in person. It was a riotous convergence of bold colors into abstract pieces brimming with primordial passion. I was awestruck.
He then said, "I painted the last one in 1995, after a gap of 3 years. Then, I just stopped. When you're a struggling artist, there comes a point in your life when you are creatively spent and you realize that you threw all the eggs in one basket, or in my case, all the paint in one canvass. Then it hits you that your entire life has been nothing more than a sordid catalog of bad choices. But as they say, life is too short to be anything but happy."
We talked for quite a long time that day. I sat near the window of the train, coming back home, in a pensive state. Passengers around me had vacant expressions; a conditioned impassivity brought about by routinized lifestyles. I listened to the muted undulation of the train, anticipating every curve and turn; a skill learned again out of the consistent drill of daily modus operandi. Routine makes you captive to the mundane.
A week later, getting off at the same stop, I paused for a minute and looked at the number I took from him on my phone. I smiled, remembering one of his many quips. I stared at it for quite some time, before giving it a ring. Apparently the number did not exist. I chuckled wryly.
I pulled my jacket closer and started to move back home. Behind me, I could hear the chime of the train, fading in intensity and moving away fast.
