We, Vish and I, are walking through a little fishing village
off Karwar, which is on the coast of North Western Karnataka, when we come
across this man. He is decidedly not
South Indian or from Maharashtra, which is around the corner, and that makes it
curious enough. This most mysterious pot,
covered in red cloth on the back of the cycle makes it downright intriguing. He calls out to the village folk, but I am
not able to quite get an idea of his wares.
Fish? But why would one sell fish
in a fishing village?
So, of course, we must stop and question him. India has a million untold stories, for there
is no one to question a prospective story teller, no one to listen to a
history, perhaps part-fable, part-fact.
“Namaskar,what are you selling?” I ask in Hindi.
“Ice cream.”
Vish immediately looks at me, with that familiar longing
expression, licking his lips for effect, while I – the ever-cautious, hygiene-obsessed
parent – am defensive, signalling out of the corner of my eye that there will
be no ice cream, and if he were to be a good boy now and not press the charge,
adequate compensation will follow later.
The man’s Hindi is different, it has a practised ease,
without the effort that the Southies put in.
“Where are you from?” I ask.
“Kanpur,” he answers, and there is some pride, a touch of
defiance possibly (or was I reading too much?). Many questions arise instantly: why did you leave? Why here, and not a shudh-Hindi speaking belt? Why ice cream? ..and the family?
“That’s far away from here.” I begin with a statement-question.
“Yes, Sir. But we all
need a livelihood.” This is the familiar dal-roti argument, so it sounds predictable. Yet he continues to speak: months of meandering and many different jobs,
some menial, others stifling, brought him to Karwar and to the kulfi
business. Working with people was hard, he admits, because values are so different...
Values? This is different.
“Can we see your ice cream?”
He removes the damp red cloth, lifts the lid of the vessel
and we peer in. Sure enough, this is
home made kulfi, in the mould.
“How much do you sell them for?”
“Rs 5 for the small one,
Rs. 10 for the big one.”
My Hindi is closer to his, so a conversation ensues. His family has been left behind in Kanpur and
he visits them once a quarter, he says and I wonder if he’d save enough money
to return after the trip.
Does he buy a train ticket, or, like many others in those
million untold stories, hitch a ride on the national migration network we call
Bharatiya Rail?
I change the topic.
Unsure of how kulfi is made, I ask him if this is made out of water. The body stiffens, the chin firms up and the
eyes are now glowing.
“There is not a drop of water in this, it’s all pure milk,”
he answers, misunderstanding my question to be a mild accusation, “I sell this
to children.” He is now warming up. “Your parents brought you into this world,
fed and clothed you, and looked after
you in your childhood, but they are not your companions in Life. You leave them behind and carry on. So,” and now the words are tumbling out at
rapid pace, almost like the Sant who would preach the sermon from memory, “what
stays with you other than your Karma?.”
A rhetorical question and big talk, but very impressive, for we, father
and son, are both smitten, one by the surprise of hearing philosophy from a
kulfi seller and the other by a language he cannot half follow. “If I use
water, I can fool my customers, but I cannot fool my Karma. There is a bigger power that keeps watch on us
and that – power – is our companion.”
The last time I came across this, it was at the front desk
in Bangalore of a 26 billion dollar
company: integrity is what you do, when no one is watching, the printed poster
on the wall said.
..and yet, the difference is crucial: the company displays this
to remind those who work within, the kulfi seller needs no reminder.
“Are you happy?”
“As happy as can be, Sir,” he says, calling out to the children
in the village. …and the funny part is
that he does not consider Vish a potential customer, possibly knowing that I am
the problem.
The funnier part, of course, is that I would buy the same
kulfi if the 26 billion dollar corporation were selling it at ten times the
price.
We walk away from the philosopher and, quite literally, into
the sunset, but it’s a nice feeling.