Unplanned Traveller

We moved out of Jaipur eatery and back to our car, with our driver keen to get moving and avoid driving after nightfall. The air was thick with heat and the smells of the busy street. A dust cloud chased a passing truck, colourfully and proudly decorated with motifs and Hindi inscriptions.

As I was quickly becoming used to, a crowd of beggars and sellers of knick-knacks quickly made a circle around our car. Outside my back seat window stood an elderly man. Tall and thin with white hair and white stubble. His eyes were sunken and tired. His mouth seemed perpetually open as if gasping for breath. His head tilted back slightly as a drowning man might strain to keep his head above water. He motioned his simple wooden stamps in animal shapes, as if pressing them onto an imaginary paper. It was hard to correlate the child’s joy of these toys with his desperation to provide them. The driver shouted at the crowd in Hindi and they slowly dispersed as he reversed the car into the street. I regret that I didn’t have a chance to buy his wares or just give him some money.