A fair exchange

It was yet one of those warm and very beautiful days, thought Giri, as he watched the sun make its presence gracefully, slowly over the mountains. He had woken up in this room for as long as he could remember. And he remembered each day as one of promise.

Getting ready for the day, Giri wished he could have his wife and children back home, but knew they wouldn’t be back from the plains for another two weeks. Ah, the plains. He often wondered how it would be to actually live down there, away from the pure air, the birds, the silent mountains. Having lived on this hilltop in the Simla Hills, in quaint little Sanwara ever since a child, he decided he certainly wouldn’t like it. More because the rigorous hill lifestyle was now a part of his character, a result of several past generations who had lived at this very place.

Snick. The blade jolted Giri back to the present. He quickly finished dressing, offered his prayers to his god, and had his usual breakfast. Since taking over from his father, Giri had followed this routine each morning.

Now he made his way to the main street of the town – mall road. Never did he have to lock his front door. He again reminisced – about his childhood, his parents, his innocence now inherited ably by his children, parenthood and its accompanying innocence. In a life as this, nostalgia was a constant friend, and time was not scarce. He waved to his neighbour, pacified the excited dog, and continued on his way.

As he reached the Mall, he noticed a few tourists already roaming about. It was the season, at the height of summer down in the plains. He went to his shop and shook away the rickety shutters - which in the day served as ramps leading up to his shop. He took his place behind the low, glass counter and looked around, mechanically and quite unnecessarily, to check if anything was missing. Giri ran the family souvenir-shop and after years of experience, had learned to remember every day’s sale for the next few days. Of course, all the objects were marked at four times the normal selling value. The general clientele made this practice very feasible and profitable.

As he settled himself properly, Giri noticed an old man take his place on a little backless chair just outside the shop. There was no overt exchange - but the two men had acknowledged each other without words, as old friends do.

The day’s first customers presented themselves. A French couple, decided Giri, and married – both facts inferred by the incessant rattling they troubled each other with. The lady walked up the ramp and smiled at Giri.

‘Bonjour,’ she offered, ‘Avez-vous d’evian?’ To which she received a wide smile from Giri, even displaying his gold tooth. She sat down on the stool and dragged her husband there too. Now that she understood that the shop-owner was clueless as to what she was saying, she tried frantic hand-waving, to which she only received frantic hand-waving from Giri – intended, of course, to signal the husband to sit down. After a few minutes, when he’d had enough fun from one customer, Giri told her he didn’t stock mineral water. Her husband tried, resigned, to explain that a souvenir-shop would hardly specialize in selling Evian. She threw her hands up exasperated, and stormed out, allowing her husband to follow in her trail.

The next customer was another European – a woman backpacker who thought she knew English. What she didn’t know was that right now, Giri had decided that he did not.

‘Souvenirs?’ she asked.

Giri nodded, happy that the woman noticed.

‘Gem, for..’ she pointed to her necklace, ‘ ..Colour..’ – she rummaged in her bag for something green, but Giri thought it would have been better if she’d just pointed to her shirt. Giri showed her a few green stones and she selected one. ‘Real, eh?’ she enquired. No, replied Giri – but only in his mind. But he managed a ‘Hmmm’ and a slow peculiar nodding motion.

‘How much?’ she asked.

‘Four fifty,’ said Giri, bracing himself for the shock and incredulity, and the eventual bout of bargaining that was sure to follow. But surprisingly, she paid him. Well, not bad, eh, thought Giri as he pocketed the money.

The next person was a burly man, sweating profusely from the arduous task of walking the fifty yards from the hotel to Giri’s shop. He wanted a paper cutter. When he’d selected one, he asked for the price.

‘Two-forty,’ replied Giri.

‘Too much,’ said the man, not sweating anymore, his body having realized that it was no longer being unjustly exerted.

‘Two-twenty,’ countered Giri.

‘Uh-huh,’ said the man, shaking his head, which started sweating at the movement.

Suddenly the old man outside the shop crackled, ‘I could give that to you for half the original price.’

The big man heaved himself around, then turned back to see Giri’s reaction. Giri’s face was expressionless. However, for some reason, the man slowly got up – started sweating again – and left the shop. Giri and the old man simply looked at each other.

Thereafter till about noon, the going was fairly idle. Just as he was about to close his shop for the half-hour lunch break, a young man marched in, seemingly in a hurry. He looked around, and his eyes lit-up as he spied a chess-set on display.

‘Just what I always wanted,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘How much?’

Giri ventured ‘Nine hundred’ – one hundred more than even the quadrupled marked price.

‘Too much,’

‘Eight hundred fifty,’ Giri said. The young man shook his head.

‘Alright.. Eight hundred, no less,’ Giri declared.

The man again shook his head and looked genuinely crestfallen, until he reminded himself that he didn’t know how to play chess. He was about to leave, when the old man sprang up, ‘I could give that to you for half the original price.’

‘I’ll take it!’ snapped the youth, smiling now.

‘Come back here in ten minutes, five if you’re taking the bus,’ said the old man, well aware of the only bus each day departing from Sanwara.

When the young man left, the old man got up, walked up the ramp to Giri, and held out his hand. He received the chess set.

‘You needn’t have done that this time. I was getting there,’ Giri said simply, not angry.

‘I know,’ the old man said. ‘Allow an old man some fun, what?’ He smiled and returned to his place.

The young man came shortly after, received the chess set, and handed the promised sum over to the old man. Then when the youth left, the old man trudged over to Giri, handed him half the amount, and pocketed the rest himself. This time another smile was exchanged.

The uncle and nephew then settled down in their original positions, as they had done for the last fifteen years.

(2000)