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Poetry  Country of Crowds --Pavithra Krishnan This is a country of crowds. So get used to that. To being jostled, shoved, herded. Try not to take it personally. Remember, here you are one in a billion. I know you think you hate crowds. They make you feel lonely. I know how you stand at crowded street corners, how you blank out the sound and then let the camera of your gaze travel silently from face to random face. Each Animated. Occupied. Purposed. And Separate from you. Faces are like walls you think. And this makes you feel locked out. Invisible. You stand there trying to remember that you have a home somewhere and a mother who worries if you’re out too late, that next week Tuesday an out of town friend will be down for a visit, that last year you starred in the college play. You are trying to fix your context, because in this crowd you’ve lost it somewhere. And it bothers you that no one else is bothered. You think too much. Which is why much of the time you are such a fool (kind voice. affectionate even.) But you’re not quite past hope just yet. This morning at the bus stop sitting next to you was Durga. She is threemaybealmostfour, and she sits on the lap of her barefoot mother- maybe aunt. Small and wriggly, with the causeless excitement of early childhood. Her lips have been smeared over with some sort of lipstick. Very bright. Very red. Like in a children’s coloring book, outlines have been treated with indifference. Her eyes have been done up with kohl and are a little smudged around the corners. On her left cheek is a big, unapologetic black dot. The drishtipottu. Believed to ward off the evil spirits that swarm like hungry bees around pretty faces. Her dress is peach colored satin no longer new. It is a little dirty, a little small, and Durga wears it like a little princess. She swings her legs and the anklets on her feet cry out for attention. In her hands she clutches a pair of plastic sunglasses. They are big and fluorescent green, the lenses are orange tinted. She puts them on for you. Crookedly. S! he smiles, her mouth (and some of her baby teeth) red, her eyes hidden, her nose just starting to run. She has short, curly, sun browned hair. All of it pulled tight into two small pigtails. You smile back with amusement- with admiration. Am going to garland the goddess, am going to garland the goddess, am going to garland the goddess! Her voice is baby–shrill and her legs kick up and down. Again the sound of anklet bells. Questions fly into your eyes, tangle in your throat. Which goddess? What temple? Where? And why? Why? Why?Has something wonderful happened that thanks must be offered? Is some suffering being endured that must be relieved? Or is it blessings for some soon to be occasion that will be sought?…and what flowers in the garland? You need answers, you want to know, and you open your mouth to ask. And as if in response to an about-to-be-issued command, a dusty green and cream bus materializes. Number thirteen exclaims the barefoot mother, maybe aunt. She rises swiftly, with the child in her arms. And you catch one glimpse of the drhistipottu. Black dot on brown skin. Promising protection. They are gone and your questions are unanswered. And you are smiling a little thinking of those beautiful, absurd glasses. Your own bus pulls up, and you get on, still smiling. The bus is full this morning. And you can’t see the conductor’s face, but only a part of his blue shirt. You fumble for change and the bag of books you’re holding slips a little. You clutch at it awkwardly. The woman sitting closest to you reaches over for the bag. She is talking to the woman next to her who is wearing a sari patterned in yellow flowers, about the terrible cough she had last night that kept everyone up and how she had to drink warm tumblersful of tulsi-water and…she takes the bag from you still talking. It startles you, a little, the natural-ness of the gesture. You want to tell her you hope her cough will be better soon. Just then the woman standing in front of you taps your shoulder. She has passed your change to the back of the bus, and now your ticket is being passed down to you. It’s a funny system. There are always some people now and again, who will bluntly refuse to pass down your change, others will religiously avoid meeting your eye and pretend they can’t see your extended hand, still others will take it from you grudgingly, as if with great difficulty and at the cost of some unthinkable personal sacrifice. And then there are those people who will nod encouragingly at you and hold out a cheerful hand for your change, even before it’s out. People who seem almost to be having fun passing other people’s change and tickets back and forth. Like it’s some sort of game- "how many can I pass this time round?" You always try to catch their eyes when they pass you your ticket, to say Thank You, because you mean it, and you’d like them to know. Sometimes you can feel a great rush of gratitude for the strangest of things. So this lady hands you your ticket and you’re getting ready your smile but she beats you to it. Her smile is already there- big and simple. Again you feel a startle of surprise. She has bachelor’s buttons in her hair. You haven’t seen those flowers in a long, long time. They used to grow out front at your grandmother’s house. You can cut them and put them in a vase and they stay fresh and un-faded for weeks at a time. When you get off at your stop, you feel unusually light. The traffic around you keeps moving. You look around, stopping for a moment.This time you don’t blank out the sound. Because it too is a part of the picture. And you look at the faces. They are the same as before. Animated. Occupied. Purposed. And Separate from you. But in some way connected. Connected in some way- even if only in that they are all part of the freeze frame of that particular moment of your life. And suddenly that is enough- suddenly that is much much more than enough. And before you cross the street, you clutch this new wisdom tightly between your fingers. Anxiously, between your fingers, because this is Wisdom too new to lose, too precious to drop. You worry too much. Which is why much of the time you are such a fool (the voice is still kind. still affectionate). But you’re not quite past hope just yet. This is a country of crowds. So get used to that.

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