I sat there in a dosa shop, waiting for my Onion dosa to arrive. It had always been a long wait in morning, if you want to eat anything specialized. The service for Idli, Vada, and some rice dishes were available within minutes of your order. After continuous and unabashed eating of Idli and Vada for six months, I was almost done with them. It’s not that I won’t eat them but given chance, like on weekends, I would rather eat something else. So, I waited.
A guy of short stature came in front of the shop. A mongrel dog barked at him, like dogs bark at a homeless person. He didn’t even look at the dog. His steps didn’t show any urgency despite the dog’s barking. With his measured steps, he stepped into the shop. The dog stood there. He wore a crumpled dark sand colored pant, as if it had been squeezed tightly after washing and never ironed after that.There was something in his left pant pocket, which had ballooned up. The color of his shirt was dull white, not the Tide white. He wore something inside below his shirt, for he didn’t look this healthy from is slender legs. The inner wear could be because of sudden cold breeze that was blowing. His face was totally wrapped, only his eyes were visible, in a saffron colored cloth, like the daily wage laborer who worked in a local construction. His eyes probed the dosa place. For a moment, he looked as if he would be going to someone and would ask him to pay for his food.
I lowered my gaze. Next moment, when I raised my head to face him he had been filling his tiny water bottle of a non-descript soda company. He filled it up and left it there. The water container was next to the tea stall. The tea stall guy didn’t say anything to him, when he left it there, which meant that they do know him like a regular. He took off the cloth from his face to show his white, moped hairs along with boney features of his face. He stood in the line for the orders. When his turn came, he ordered something, collected the change and stood there waiting for his order. He looked around. He was astonishingly calm. Not a single expression changed in his face. Whatever anyone buy? Whatever anyone say to him? However anyone look at him? He just stood there with his frail body and resplendent face with shining features. Not a word he had spoken either after he had ordered.
The one dosa wrapped in a newspaper was handed to him. He took it and asked for extra sambhar. The worker inside the dosa shop gave two polythene packets of sambhar to him. He returned to his water bottle. There once again he turned into the same person who had walked into the dosa place.
Once he was out of the dosa place, he sat outside of the shop on to the stairs of another shop, which was closed. He took out a tiny stainless steel bowl from his pant pocket and put it on his right hand side. In this, he poured one plastic bag of sambhar. The dog who stood there in front of the shop went to him. He unwrapped the single dosa and bit into it couple of times. Once he ate half of it, he dropped the rest of it in the bowl. The dog started to lick from the bowl. He opened the another plastic bag of sambhar, stretched his neck upward, and drank it like water. Then, he waited for the dog to finish. The dog had licked the bowl empty and from the look of the dog, he remained hungry. The guy had dropped his plastic waste in the corner waste bin, washed his bowl under the municipal tap, and went away.
Thinking that the dog must be hungry, as the dog was looking at me, I bought an Idli and threw it toward the dog. The dog came forward, sniffed it, and went away. I waited there for more than half and hour, for my Onion dosa, but the dog didn’t return.
