steppingacrosstheplanet

My father and I were in the back of a taxi in the middle of a Delhi street, inching alongside other battered cars, paint chipped bicycles with goods piled higher than the riders, ancient rickshaws crammed with families and dirty white buses that tilted alarmingly and belched black smoke from exhausts that hung millimetres from the tarmac. The traffic was hampered further by a horned cow to our left, three sari clad women in different shades of blue to our right and a ute with several men in the back only slightly jostled by their barely moving ride as it effected a slow but determined u turn in the middle of this teeming micro universe. Our driver pressed his horn again, uselessly, the toot lost against a thousand toots and groaning brakes as the lights changed from green to red.
I watched an ocean of people cross the road against a backdrop of tattered canvas stalls and crumbling buildings, my mouth was still singing from tandoori chicken and hot sweet masala tea. Our quest to visit my father’s birthplace outside Delhi had started and I was gradually feeling more of a participant less an audience member. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tall, youngish, sturdy man look at our car and instantly change into an old man with a shaking body and head he could barely control. His shoulders drooped and his facial skin sagged, his eyes became rheumy and took on a hungry, desperate longing. He walked against the flow of people, he was bumped forward and sideways, vulnerable with age, but he made it to our car, his quivering hand out for alms. My father saw him approach and gave him a few rupees, which the man took gratefully. They made eye contact and I watched an acknowledgement of sorts for the man now appeared the same age as my father. I watched him shuffle away limping and saw his head become erect and his stride surer as he once again became part of Delhi.
I had seen only one other example of this kind of transformation years ago in Sydney at a theatre rehearsal where the protagonist was an old, blind man. I witnessed, transfixed as a fit, slight, good looking man immediately altered his physical being into a craggy faced, wizened man, bent over, trembling with age, eyes vacant, even his hair had become dull and grey, such was his magic.
The Sydney actor had crafted his performance, over years of study and experience, as had the Delhi actor. Both men were artists, both men had their motivations. Only their stages were different.