On a fight outside a Khan Market bookstore

This is something I saw once
while browsing through a bookstore. Two men were standing outside a little
bookstore in Delhi, a Khan Market special, where you can pretend to riffle the
books on the inside and watch all kinds of perverse attempts at the human
experiment on the outside. Old ladies in feather boas and leather pants
shuffled past two young boys, their faces barely registering a trace of fuzz,
their heads securely covered with a skull cloth, who looked past at them
angrily, then turned forward to stare grimly at the world before them. Dogs
wandered by, fat and comfortable, and clothed in cute doggie sweaters, and
maimed, half-malformed bodies shuffled alongside them, gums and scarred face
almost hiding the fact that the body belonged to a teenager. Around you, the
hustle and bustle of Europe, China, Japan and the wonders and freaks of the
Americas, packaged free with a gigantic katoriful of India. As I looked out, I
saw a human drama that transcended and encompassed these. What I saw was a
little play, with an imaginary beginning and an imaginary end, but no sense of
context or reference, like watching an isolated snatch of some much larger
movie. It was up to me to place it in whatever context I wished to, and it’s up
to you as well.

 

Two men were arguing over some
matter. They seemed to be poised at that precipice of an argument before it
descends into simple animal violence. One man held in his hands a small, worn
cricket ball. He held it away from the other, as if his life and soul depended
on it, fear writ large upon his eyes and body. The other was a tall, moustachioed,
well-dressed man, in an expensive suit and a tie that carried colours the
rainbow (very sensibly) had never heard of. He held the man’s shirtsleeves in
one hand and groped wildly with the ball for the other. The other man dressed
pretty much as the opposite side to such an opponent would under these
circumstances. We shall call them, under these circumstances, Jared (call me
Jared) Khataria and Muninder Chamiya.

 

As they struggled, they launched
into a curious dialogue that seemed to be encompassing a lot more than I could
know of:

 

"Give it to me"

"No"

"God, its falling apart,
give it here, I'll give you another one while I fix it.""

The man looked horrified at this possibility.
"Please don’t do that, it’s the only one I have," he cried through
plaintive tears.

Call me Jared looked angry enough
to crack the other man's skull open. "Look you fool, I have one exactly
like it right here."

The man looked puzzled at his suggestion,
wondering what that ball in Call Me's hands had to do with the one in his,
failing to understand the import of his suggestion, as it were.

The Call blackened considerably
and hissed into the other one's face "You can use the other one until I
fix this one, then when I'm done with yours, I can give it back to you."

The man's fear turned into
revulsion, as he pushed away with all his strength. He seemed ready to vomit.

MeJared stopped suddenly and said,
"Look, I can show you something. It's not even similar to that one. It's
the same." He pointed to a mark on it and to a similar mark on the other
one's. "See, you put that there yourself, it’s on this one too."

The man returned to fear, mixed
with some awe, as he gaped at the mark as if transfixed. Then he shook himself
together and screamed, almost as if like a small child "No!"

Call Me RedJar looked about ready
to burst, but he tried again. "It's not just the outside that's the same,
the inside's exactly the same too, all the way to the core. In fact, you could
never tell the difference between the two if you had a million years and a team
of experts."

This stopped the other man for a
second. He stepped back, holding the ball protectively in his hands so as to
examine it. Majeredcall, sensing that that other man may have developed an
interest, stepped back as well, and held the ball in his hands.

"Look, I'll even give you
this one to keep once I fix that one. I'm only doing this for your own good,
you know".

The other man stood transfixed,
staring at the ball in his hands. His hands seemed to grip a little less
protectively over his ball as he stared at the other one, curious. His eyes
shone for a second, then filled with fear again, as he stepped back, holding it
to his face like a small child or a precious pet. "No" he screamed,
favouring consistency over variety.

The De Majrecall bowed his head,
almost defeated, and then lifted it up again. In his eyes shone a determination
to try a final time.

"They're practically the
same, only mine is stronger and wont fall apart so soon. You don't even want to
keep the other one until I fix this one. I give in. I only ask you this thing
sir. If you answer me in any fashion aside from no, I shall give you this one,
to keep along with that one. Why will you not part with that one?"

The other man fought his fear
down, then stepped up with a simple, quiet pride that bordered on humility.
"I don't want that one." He looked at the ball held tight between his
hands, as he held it up to Jarmeadcall, he looked at it with the pride of
owning a watch since the time he was a child. "It's not this one," he
said, softly.

 

At this point, the altercation
tipped over into violence and I lost them in the melee of observers who had
crawled up to watch. I watched the throng for a while, and then disappeared.
All throngs look the same. They're fun to watch under the right circumstances,
like a lynching, or perhaps a violent protest, but otherwise, the milling brain-dead
throng that obeys simple herd instinct to circle a curious event was a boring
and pathetic thing to watch. However, as I left, I could not shake the feeling
that there had not been a proper resolution to that argument, no matter how I
turned it around.

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