Paratha

 Aftab huffed on the bicycle as he reached Gulmohar Lane. The flyover opening onto the National Highway stretched python-like to his right, deserted. In the fifteen kilometers he had cycled, he had seen two hawkers who stood under the blaze of the July sun on empty roads to sell fried peas, water chestnuts and pakoras to the occasional passerby, and one other cyclist. 

      Four months of the pandemic lockdown following close on the heels of a seven-month long political shutdown had turned the city into a ghost of its former self.

       Aftab brought his bicycle to a stop near the mouth of the lane. Looking straight ahead, he saw a hunched-up form walking towards him- still only the size of his finger on the horizon.

 Water. 

    He pulled a little black bag out of the clutches of the carrier and, still seated on his bicycle, fished out the blue vacuum flask. The stream of cool water trickled pleasantly down his throat. 

    "Darn! I wish I'd brought something to eat! Still can't believe I forgot the whole packet on the counter!"

     Aftab got off the bicycle, his slight bulge of a tummy not discernible under the loose t-shirt. Rahila had insisted that he needed to lose weight.

       "It's just not healthy. Men have weaker hearts. I won't hear a thing!"

"Boy, will she be mad if she ever finds out about me lounging the day away in Mughal Gardens! No way would I have stayed at home directing the labourer around. That'd done me in, for sure!" he thought.

       He pulled up a corner of his t-shirt and wiped his neck with it, puffing some more and raising his brows as if in anticipation. An N95 mask hung loosely around his neck.

    Five more kilometers to go. 

       The figure approaching him was now a pencil, now a stump…and finally human. Attired in a Pathani suit with a bag slung over his shoulders, the finger-pencil-stump man stopped in front of him.

      "Particularly hot today, eh?!" the man remarked as soon as he reached Aftab.

     "The sun is breathing fire, man!" said Aftab.

     "Hahaha!"

     The man sat on the divider- a strip of concrete verge- that separated the highway from the small lane beyond, took out a water bottle from his bundle - a cheap, plastic flimsiness with a worn-out cap- and started chugging it. 

      "Ahhhhhhh!"

    "You are quite something to walk in this weather…" observed Aftab.

     "Obligations! They'll make you do stuff."

     "You should've taken a bicycle at least."

    "I don't have one."

     "Oh! Were you labouring somewhere? You look exhausted."

    "Yea, one of those new houses up in that colony in Bemina. Work is like the moon of eid these days, thanks to these shutdowns and what not. So, you gotta grab whatever of it comes your way. No way in hell otherwise would I have come this far for a pesky eight hundred rupees!"

"Yes, hard times…" sighed Aftab.

As the man replaced his bottle in his bundle, he let out an exclamation:

"Oh! Bless her heart, she had packed more eatables," he said as he pulled out a fat block wrapped in green polythene. 

Aftab felt his mouth salivate as two huge parathas were unwrapped by the man. The man bit into one and then looked at Aftab. Respectfully and with insistence, he asked Aftab to take one paratha. After initial refusal, Aftab sat on the divider next to the man and bit into the flatbread filled with spiced boiled potatoes. He felt a door of heaven open with that first bite.

"Ten months of lockdown!" the man suddenly remarked, "I had to sell the bicycle to pay for my son's online classes. Got a little labour offer today for five hundred rupees…cheapskates! They'll spend thousands in these departmental stores buying toilet paper like some English babus but a menial labourer- him they'll haggle with for a mere five hundred rupees! I declined to move a finger till they agreed to give me eight hundred. The things I had to say to make it so!"

"Hmmm…"

"The poor can't afford expensive things like self-respect, but I'll say some of these rich people have a heart the size of a cashew nut. We are poor but at least we're not misers!"

"That's true," said Aftab. "This world runs in strange ways like that. Money holds great power. Just yesterday, I read about that MP Altaf Raja who made three hundred crores last year from his illegal fruit orchards! Conscience is dead these days."

The paratha was melting in Aftab's mouth. He didn't remember the last time he'd had such delicious bread. Devouring the last bits, he stood up, took out his wallet and extracted two five-hundred-rupee notes. 

"Here. Keep these. As goodwill," he said, extending the crisp notes towards the man.

"I'd rather that I earn them."

"Don't we all?!" chuckled Aftab. "Hard to be an idealist all the time. This world will put your principles through fire, but you earned these. I was famished. I would probably have given half my fortune for a morsel of bread fifteen minutes ago. This is just poor recompense."

 Gingerly, the man took the money and mumbled a 'thank you'. They shook hands.

Aftab climbed onto his bicycle as the other man dusted himself off. He started pedalling away while the finger-pencil-stump man resumed his slow steps until pedal-by-pedal and step-by-step, the air filled the gap between them, and they both became dots on each other's horizons. 

"You are back! What took you so long!? You've been gone since the morning. You'd left your phone here. I was worried sick!" Rahila cornered Aftab as soon as he stepped into the house. 

"Oh yea! Sorry about the phone. I got a flat tyre and had a hard time looking for a repairer- everything's closed. Then I stopped to eat something. I forgot to pack the energy bars and I was worn out, so I cycled slower than usual."

His wife wore a look of the half-moon of trust.

"Did the guy your father had sent come to clean up the gardens and all?" Aftab asked as he filled a glass with water at the sink in the kitchen.

"Yes, he made a big fuss about the money. I ended up giving him the eight hundred he asked for. As if we had given him an estate to clean! If it weren't for this lockdown, our own servants would be here. It would have saved me all the haggling. Three hundred would have been enough for the day's work for that man. But then I thought I must relent because of the lockdown. You know how I am! Plus, he came on foot, just to show that he is miserable. "Sold my bicycle for my son's fees", my foot! He probably hid it in the next lane. I won't be surprised to hear he had hidden a scooter there to be honest."

Aftab blinked as he listened to her, kept nodding his head and filled another glass of water. The flavours of the paratha were still dancing in his mouth.