The bazaar was just coming to life, earlier than usual on the accord of Ramzan.....
It was eight in the morning and the busy lane of Kazimbazaar was beginning to fill up with early risers who came there mainly to 'socialize'....
Ruqsana came trotting towards Hakim chacha's shop, balancing the right strap of her bag on her right shoulder and the edge of her hijab by her left hand.
On approaching the shop, she enquired about Nusrat and Hakim chacha called for her in his usual high-pitched voice, exposing his red, decayed teeth, probably from the over-consumption of paan.
Nusrat joined Ruqsana sometime later, bangles clinking against each other around her chubby wrists.
They both walked hand-in-hand swaying slightly in a rhythmic way.
The whole bazaar road was dotted with a wide range of colourful shops, selling commodities ranging from colourful dupattas to shorba kabaab, typical of the various Muslim ghettos in the vicinity....
Their school was a ten minutes walk from the bazaar road; a large banyan tree in the vicinity of the Masjid complex was what they referred to as their school.
The Quazi sahib used to preach them the Quran Sharif and the interpretation of various Fatwas that were issued....
They both were really excited. The Ramzan was to end that day and the festival of Id-ul-fitr was the day after which meant a day off from the school and a full time to enjoy the Eid mela!
They passed from the Ghat....
Everything was just as it always used to be except from the fact that sitting on the lower steps of the Ghat was an old man, his face hardly visible under the veil of his matted hair and he was sitting in a yoga position, probably meditating, with a saffron drape covering his body.
The girls got curious.
Ruqsana had never encountered such a man before. He seemed to be lost in his own world, quite immune to the mumbling and grumbling going on around him.
She took a step or two in his direction, trying to examine him more closely.
Her first reaction was the one of dread as the man actually quite frightening in a way, with ash spread on his forehead but slowly that feeling of dread subdued and curiosity crept up in its place.
"Who is he?" Ruqsana mumbled mostly to herself but her voice trailed a longer distance and Rampyari, who was Kanhaiyalal's daughter, and was at that time helping her father in arranging the marigold flowers into garlands to be sold at the Ghat, probably heard her as she replied at once with a childish lisp-
"He's a Sanyasi. He came here in the morning in a boat.....I saw many such Sanyasis when I went to Haridwar with babuji."
She said and went then went about with her own business.
"Come Ruqsana, we're getting late for school." Nusrat said.
"Oh!" Ruqsana mumbled the response in a quiet voice, not loud enough for Rampyari to hear and went on gazing at the Sanyasi, with extreme concentration and curiosity.
Nusrat broke into her reverie and pulling her by her hand, paced swiftly towards the school. The hours at school went by. Ruqsana was too absorbed in her own thoughts to actually focus at what was being taught.
Her mind was still at the Ghat, observing the Sanyasi with its eyes. A curious mind doesn't stop but wonders......
So she too wondered about the life of the Sanyasi, what exactly he was doing here, what kind of life he had led and why it was that he dressed so peculiarly........
When she reached her home that evening, she was still thinking about the same thing.
Her mother, oblivious of the fact, reminded her to get ready for the namaz and Ruqsana followed the instructions with the realization that this was the last namaz of the month of Ramzan and that tomorrow was the day that she and all her friends waited for whole year round....
They would all be getting their Eidi and going to the mela which had already been set up in the maidan in front of the Masjid.
That night she couldn't sleep....
Her excitement for the next day had robbed her of her sleep.
The Sanyasi and the Ghat were forgotten for a little while....
The next morning she leapt from the bed on the first break of dawn, as soon as the rooster's call filled the morning air...
After offering the first namaz, her mother asked her to go to the Ghat and purchase some garlands from Kanhaiyalal's shop.
The mention of the Ghat brought the memory of the Sanyasi back to her mind and she hoped that he would still be there and asked her mother if she could spend some time at the Ghat after buying the garlands.
She had to meet a friend, she explained hastily as she sprinted towards the Ghat, after her mother consented.
On seeing the Sanyasi still sitting in the same position as before, her excitement increased fourfold.
Few people had placed offerings at his feet but he seemed to be oblivious about the fact and was still lost in some deep contemplation with his eyes closed and his face radiating an aura of calmness.
She went and sat candidly on the step below the one on which the Sanyasi was sitting, all the while eyeing him curiously.
Suddenly she noticed a mayna sitting on the web of his matted hair, pecking at all the material accumulated there over the years, an implication of the fact that he travelled a lot....
Ruqsana tried to shoo off the bird by waving her hand. She was in motion when she heard a deep, gruff voice-
"It'll go away itself."
She almost jumped at the sound of the Sanyasi's voice as she had started imagining him as a statue.
He opened his dark, unfathomable eyes that seemed to take in everything and eyed the awestruck, petite child of nine, standing candidly in front of him.
His voice softened a bit and he said-
"Say what you must, don't be afraid."
Years of solitude had turned him into a person who used very few words while speaking.
Ruqsana gathered her courage and sat on the same step as his.
"Who are you?" was her first question and as she waited for an answer, she became aware of his eyes gazing intently at her. After a long pause, he finally said-
"It's quite simple to ask a hard question, isn't it? Well, that is what I myself want to know. Who am I?" saying this, he stopped and looked at her.
She continued-"why are you living like this? Why don't you wear normal clothes like everyone else?"
"What is normal? What might be normal for one person might be abnormal for another. Moreover, when you tread the path of God, you shed your wants. Blessed is he who expects nothing for he would never be disappointed." the Sanyasi replied to her question.
"But don't you want anything? Neither food nor money?" Ruqsana asked, half confused.
"For the want of nail, the shoe was lost, for want of the shoe, the horse was lost, for want of the horse, the man was lost." the Sanyasi replied with his drape fluttering in the breeze.
"But you live all alone! Don't you have a family? A mother or a father?" Ruqsana asked.
"I have God. He is my everything. Absence makes the heart grow fonder." the Sanyasi replied.
"But Allah is in heaven!" Ruqsana exclaimed.
"The Earth is my heaven and I'll spend my heaven doing good on Earth." the Sanyasi replied.
"But my ammi says that Allah resides in the Masjid." Ruqsana said innocently.
"The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere." the Sanyasi replied, with his eyes towards the sky.
"But it's impossible to live like you!" Ruqsana exclaimed again.
The Sanyasi replied in a detached manner-"The difficult is done at once, the impossible takes a little longer."
The world didn't matter neither did the pain. God was the single truth of his life. He wanted to attain self-knowledge.
Ruqsana was quite confused; her innocent self was unable to understand what the Sanyasi was trying to say.
"You know everything then?" she asked, full of bewilderment.
"It's just an illusion. Everyone knows everything in their minds. They just have to explore it in their inner-selves. A static, solitary shell lying on a beach tells the story of the ocean." The Sanyasi had just finished when-
"Ruqsana!" a high-pitched voice called her name and Ruqsana turned back to watch Nusrat standing on the top-most step of the Ghat.
'Your ammi is calling for you. Did you get the garlands?"Nusrat asked.
"Oh!" Ruqsana cupped her hands on her mouth and hurried to Kanhaiyalal's shop on the Ghat platform, quickly purchased the garlands and then ran back to the Sanyasi who had already closed his eyes the moment
Nusrat had called for her.
"Will you be here tomorrow?" she asked panting, short of breath from all the running but the Sanyasi was lost in his own world now.
The ecstasy of devotion had filled him. She thought it better to not to disturb him and just ended with observing him.
"Ruqsana! Are you going to come or not? We're going to miss the mela. My ammi has already given me my Eidi."
Nusrat called from the above steps. The mention of the mela was enough to break Ruqsana's concentration.
She forgot all about the question that she was going to ask to the Sanyasi and ran up the steps of the Ghat to join Nusrat and they started pacing towards Ruqsana's home.
"What were you doing with him? What did he say to you?" Nusrat asked quizzically.
"Nothing that I could understand. His words were really confusing. He's quite lonely. Doesn't it seem so? Maybe that's why he's always so morbid. I just wish that he stays here tomorrow also. Did you notice the vermilion mark on his forehead? Wasn't it a beautiful shade of red? And that beaded necklace around his neck was so pretty. I wonder where he got it from. I have to ask him tomorrow. I'll also ask ammi to get a same one for me from the mela............."