The morning was perfect as a picture, as it could only be on a sun dappled winter morning. The city was rousing from it’s warm quilt-cocooned night, the roadside tea-stalls brewing their first of the innumerable pot of tea, the few enthusiastic walkers among us trickling in for their morning jaunt in the parks. The morning mist rose slowly, giving way to the first colours of dawn, which took the opportunity to liberally paint the sky with the first flush of pink. It was a day when I chose to take a lazy walk in the park near my house. The paths around were strewn with the fallen leaves that the trees were shedding, but the flowerbeds were a riot of colours.

        I walked slowly around the path, reflecting on nothing in particular…just an idle thought here and now. The sun hadn’t yet come up to make our walking unpleasant, the breeze was a gentle caress on our faces, and the trees around were playing a cheerful game of peek a boo with the sunshine dappling them. Just as I turned a corner where the tall shirish trees made an impressive background with its heavy branches when, I saw him. Through the shadows in the trees bordering the wall I could make out a form, in the morning light it looked human to me. I stopped for a moment, not sure of what I should do as a thousand thoughts, unpleasant ones, passed over my mind. I tried to peer through the darkness amidst the trees to discern as to who was there and why was the person hiding from me but couldn’t.

     The morning light was still not bright enough. I was just about to walk away when he walked out of the shadows. All I could see were two frightened eyes, looking furtively about him, so very unsure of his presence. I recognized him then…he was Robi, our local ‘pagla’ as everyone called him. He stayed under the flyover among the other vagrants and begged for his living. Nobody thought twice about him, he was one of those unfortunate souls for whom this world has neither place nor time. But today, seeing him among the shadows puzzled me. As he stepped out into the slanting ray of sunlight that bathed the trunk of the tree, I saw that he was without any clothes, not a stitch was on him. I understood then. He was embarrassed and scared and so helpless, especially after seeing me. Before I could move out of his vision, I saw him searching frantically for something. It was a piece of rag that he picked up from the litter that was brushed against the wall for clearance, and wrapped it around his waist. He looked at me, and through the snatches of sunlight that was illuminating his face I could see the relief that flit across his face for being able to be decent in front of me. I saw the smile, not the usual wild vacant grin that he always had on his face when he got a one-rupee coin dropped in his battered allumimium cup by some benevolent soul on those few lucky days in his life. It was a smile of revelation, as if he was experiencing an emotion that he had lost for very many years. For sometime as our eyes met, I could see the look of realization, the feeling of shame, the happiness in being able to experience something that he had not for a long time maybe. I started to smile and took a step towards him just to assure him that everything was fine, when in a flash he moved out from the light and into the shadows. I heard then the maniacal laughter, followed by a sudden rush among the trees. He stood there, in another ray of sunlight, the smile gone, instead the wild grin that he always had was there on his face, and that piece of cloth that was so important to him a while ago was hanging from his fingers. Stark naked, Robi looked at me, and I did not see any shame or helplessness in those eyes now. It was vacant. He threw away the cloth and with another wild laughter that rent the morning air, he was gone. The morning ray of sunlight no longer followed him.

      I stood there, stunned. On that glorious winter morning I was an unexpected intrusion into a man’s world, where there is neither light nor darkness. It just needed a morning ray of sunlight for him to cross over from the murky grey depths of a disillusioned world and then get lost again into its bottomless vortex. I witnessed the transition of a soul that saw a glimpse of light over the grey border that winter morning. And I understood then that never a line so thin could be so impassable.