Sampath

‘Sampath’

‘Sampath’ he said, in a single word, saying many more unsaid phrases. 

He was leaning forward, with both his hands on the table cloth that the wind had flown off,  holding it down to the table,while i with the evening ware of goods for sale in two trays, looked a second at that silly dramatic theatrical gesture, two feet away. 

I didnt reply. 

It began about a month and half ago, when i had started putting out a table, outside my home, to sell handmade products made by a friend’s group of disadvantaged adults. Just for an hour or so every evening. On a road where walkers went back and forth, in hopes of better health, pendulum like.

The table long shop soon was a runaway hit with walkers stopping by for a chat, picking up a thing or two. Some walkers would only nod a hello, some ignore and pass by.  Anyway i had a pleasant hour every evening. 

Except for one thing. One walker  in particular, in the same faded navy Tshirt daily, would stare. And every time, he walked up and down the same stretch in that hour.  You know one of those stares, that bore a hole in you and you turn to look ‘who the heck is staring’!

This way  ‘Sampath’ , unfortunately for me, got many a replying glance to his stares from me. Until i came to my senses and was careful to keep my eyes down on the book that i usually carried. The stares continued to bore their holes.

Then that windy day,  when he theatrically said his name, i came back home and narrated what happened to my husband as he sat in his perch in the verandah,  smoking his evening cigar.

‘And he went ‘Sampath’, Daddy, can you imagine’. Daddy looked at me as i bent with both my hands on his legs and stared into his soft distracted eyes. ‘Imagine some lady coming like that and saying just her name ‘ Shantha’! Or something’. Trying in vain to extrapolate a response from my husband. Who let the matter pass, as one more thing he didnt get about his strange wife!

Anyway the matter did bring a little joy to me as which 50 year old doesnt like some attention from the opposite sex with youth fading and the ides of age creeping in. 

I did realise it was the narcissist in me seeking a better looking image in the mirror of another, and it did make me feel better. 

Days went by, i was as cautious as ever never to make eye contact, but i did notice myself checking out from the corner of my eye if a dull navy blue shirt was walking by.

I imagined he either didnt have a wife- for which woman will allow a man to wear the same shirt every evening? Drenched in sweat, every evening? Or she had stopped caring. Whichever way, ‘Sampath’ didnt see the futility of staring at a woman who was obviously beyond his reach, for many a time my husband had stopped by my table for a chat, so the boundaries were clearly drawn.

Yet it gives a smile to my face and a twinkle to my eye. Commodities that have become rare.

Strange that something which hasnt even a beginning, can give a feeling of hope. It wasnt that i didnt love my husband, i did, but life’s routines remove the romance of the unexpected, the song of the soul, and amidst cooking idlies and loading washing machines, a moment can make the heaviest rigor, light.

So ‘Sampath’ of the dull navy shirt, came and went by my life. I dont put out the table anymore- since my friend decided to sell the products online. 

Occasionally when i go for a walk, i look again from the corner of my eye, and wonder at my own lightheartedness.

Not all things need to have meaning, not all things lead anywhere. If it brings a smile to your face and a twinkle to your eyes, i guess its enough.