He was dressed in neat grey kurta and his well ironed pyjama failed to hide the fact that his old legs were rickety, he was leaning onto his staff holding it firm with his left hand. A woolen cap and a buttoned up chest coat was in proper place to save him from the mild leftover winter in the month of Basant. I saw this all while sitting on a bus stop railing(Here I must say this is not Delhi!. Bus Stops often compel you to imagine Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore but it's Rishikesh, so think of some greenery all around and very clean air and no traffic) The old man was approaching very slowly from the other side of the divider he came to this side in the sun and kept on walking.
I kept observing him, when he was a few yards away and could see me properly or I thought that he could see me properly because I could see him properly now, I nodded as a gesture of respect and he too replied in the same manner. He came near the railing went ahead of me and while holding the railing with one hand and his staff in the other hand he tried to stretch his leaning back in a manner to comfort himself, once he looked in the direction of the sun and started walking again and after several minutes he was out of sight at a turn.
All this while I wondered nothing about the old man, Only I kept observing him, when he was gone I started to think he might have been a freedom fighter as he was not weak, he looked like a man who never wants to be dependent on others or he might have been a long retired sepoy in army, who might have been retired again from some security sentinel job, or he might have been a farmer who might have left his work to his sons and youngers of the family to have a life of rest, or he might have been a school master, retired long ago whose wife might have died while he was in service which made him do his own work as his well ironed clothes showed.
Well! Whoever he was! The important thing is that he was walking on his legs; his very own legs.
And as I am sitting on the couch now with this computer in my my lap I wonder how many of us or how many of this younger generation will have a peaceful old age. We are gradually becoming parasites on mother nature. Our zooming motor vehicles, our cell phones and the technologically advanced gadgets we boast of are not life long companions but it's a healthy self, a sound mind and body which counts in the long run.
I feel satisfied to see the stamina of the old man walking on the road with no cellphone to disturb him and no unfaithful one to let him fall. His only support, his wooden staff was perhaps older than this young generation, than me. He had nothing to disturb nature. He was a child of nature and nature the nurturer.
And I hope the old man must surely be walking in the greens with his staff.
