Little Vishwamitra

I was walking back home from work today evening.

The streets of New York were back in the summer glee.

I crossed the street and took a turn.

I kept walking towards my train station.

A musician was playing on his guitar on one of the sidewalks.

A few people dropped some pennies for him. He wasnt counting. He was lost in the melancholy of his song.

I felt for him.

A Chinese lady was walking with her husband.

I couldnt but help notice the shoes that she was wearing. They were of leopard skin. 

I was tempted to call this post  "The Leopard in NY", but I had other ideas.

Read on.

I entered a park.

People were pacing up the streets.

All headed in one direction - to the train station

A host of people were also coming in the opposite direction - from the train station

Men were pacing up towards the station.
The street sellers were housing their wares for the evening.

One man was standing outside his salad shop and cutting carrots as if it was the end of the world. It appeared as if he wanted to serve the whole city of New York a dish of carrot salad.

Larger showrooms had set up the evening lights.

There was a buzz of activity at this time of the day.

A man was playing drums using a pair of paint buckets.

These are the unsung heroes with abundance of talent that no-one notices.

I kept walking.

I was nearing the station. But had to cross a couple of streets and then one mini-park.

There were tourists everywhere.

Of all shapes and sizes.

A guy was taking a picture of his girl with the Empire State building as a backdrop.

But he was squatting at the foot of the girl.

It looked weird. But he essentially wanted to click a picture with the Empire State in her fingers.

It worked I guess!

An old gentleman was adjusting his camera to click the picture of his wife.

I think they were on their 25th honeymoon.

By now I had entered a mini-park - sort of like the final exit point before I reached my train station.

The park was a small one.

The lanes or walkways were ventilated.

Basically they were covers for pipe systems that ran underground. 

There was air blowing from the pipe systems.

And since the covers had holes there was air blowing out to anyone walking on those covers which were the walkways!

I was walking on them.

There was a blow of air from beneath as I walked.

There were people sitting on the chairs in the park.

And a whole sea of people were making that final cross across the park to the station

Then suddenly amidst the rush of all the activity in New York, a little boy wearing a red shirt and a blue trousers landed in my sight.

He must have been about 3 or 4 years.

He stood on the ventilated walkway.

He just stood there as the cold air from below blew upwards onto his face and causing his brown hair to curl up.

Then he sat down on the walkway in Yoga or Padmasana style.

And put his hands on his knees, the way sages did penance in the Ramayana and Mahabharata serials.

And he closed his eyes

I just stopped. Smiled at the little boy.

And continued walking.

I turned back, the people behind me were also looking the boy - who had squatted for doing penance in the busiest of walkways in the city.

They smiled.

I smiled too.

Then after a while the boy opened his eyes.

"Maum! Where r u??"

"Come here Steven! I have a bagel for you!"

And the boy rushed to meet his mother who obviously had no clue what her boy was upto!