Hey Prabhu
Aaj maine ek murti dekha
Ek urti hui aurat ki kaanch ki murti
Sapne mein dekha toh saat Euro
Lekin gaya toh bola teen saw
Aisa nainsafi kyun?
Phir sapna kyun dikhaya?
I see you looking at her, lower shelf, left. That figure in
ceramic with the metal chain hanging off her neck. Oh come, come. Don’t be shy.
She is indeed special. If you enter the door by the pig, you’ll see her again,
smaller this time. She’s too big, they said; don’t make her so big. And so she
was shrunk to size, the urti hui kaanch
ki aurat. But what to do, the bigger one was already made, so let us put
her in the window.
Did you know there is another window? Yes, yes, in the allee
by that street. They put a little sewing machine on a wooden bench and waited
for him to come. Who? Oh, you know, that little Gepetto. No, no, I did not name
him, his mother did. He came, and they jumped out from behind the furniture and
stared and stared at him. Imagine! Five grown humans, six feet tall, they came
out and trained their eyeballs on Gepetto until he slowly froze in shock. And
then they put him in the window.
Beta, I came here when you were in your diapers. I know this
city, even which dustbins are most likely to have almost-whole food. Yes,yes, I
know, social security...but I fell through the cracks, plop! Down there I found him, and her and her and
him. And it. Before Gepetto froze, he made us some instruments. Him, and him
and him got violins, I got a harmonica but poor Pedro- there was no more wood
left, so he got a plumbing pipe.
If you want, you can come hear us play, in front of the
Ganseliesel. We take turns, Pedro also. Well, some of them do. They buy their
ice-cream cones, and sit and sit, and listen. Some only with half a ear. One or
two smile a lot and leave two Euros. But mostly, we play to her, the
Ganseliesel. She was frozen much, much before Gepetto. Oh, no, she hates it. She would much rather have
Gepetto’s quiet life. They come and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her and
never even ask. And then they cover her when boats of immigrants sink in the Mediterranean
Sea. Ofcourse she’s a statue, but so what?
You know what happens at mid-night, don’t you? Come, take a
guess. It’s called the _____ midnight hour. Yes, I know you have walked around
at midnight and not seen anything remotely witching, but that’s because you
were not following the right clock. Even your smartphone does not know the
correct time sometimes-and you have to do a manual override. Us people have a
separate clock that you folk know nothing about. Nein, I will not tell you
about it because Gepetto is tired of sitting with a surprised face for twenty
four hours of your time anyway. The last thing he needs is more hours of
sitting still, looking stupid.
Khair, aaj ke liye yeh
kaafi hai. I’m going to bed now. If you see Collector Cama, tell him I said
hallo.
