We would know he is coming. He would ring his bicycle bell
continuously, not because he is like every other guy in Patna who honks on road
unnecessarily. It was his signal for us that he is in our lane of the colony.
My mom would rush down, and start to collect finest of the flowers that flower
boy would bring. We are Brahmins, and we adhere to some proper way of
worshipping. And my mom cannot do puja without flowers. I used to wonder why does mom take so long to bring flowers, picking each of them by examining. And all
this time the flower boy would keep smiling. He has two teeth in the front which
are little bigger than the rest, and protruded outwards. Yes, like the chikku
rabbit from Champak books. This makes his face look as if he is smiling. I
always doubted him. He would not smile; it was just his face which seemed as if
he was smiling, with two of his bigger teeth at display and rest inside his
mouth. He would be of sixteen or seventeen years old. He had a dark complexion,
and brown hair. You would not believe the fashion statement he carried for
himself. He sold flowers, and he always wore a shirt which had flowery prints
on them. Marigold, and jasmine; from the front till his back, his shirt was
truly iconic. Sometimes I thought that he comes wrapped in flowers, and sell
them here to my mom. My mom is happy to buy from him. And she even asks our
neighbors to buy from him. He would not say a word; he only smiled or let’s say
he looked as if he was smiling.
He cannot speak. He cannot even listen. God has made him
this way. He was like this right from his birth. He is the only guy who
supports his family. I always thought, if someday his bicycle bell conks out, how would
he come to know? ‘No no, his mom would surely tell him that his bicycle bell is not
working’, I would say this to myself. But still, to do something whose impact
you don’t even know, how does it feel like? Does he know how much sound does that bell make? He does not.
The flower boy was special. He
would make me think a lot. But this was true that his arrival in our colony each day changed everyone’s mood at that particular moment. I don’t know if he smiled or not, but he would make us
smile. I can never forget those protruded teeth of his.
We have a lot in our lives in one way or the other. There
are many who don’t even have those. The flower boy is special. And he makes me
feel that I am special too, because I have so many things. He makes me feel
worth of all those things which I would have not considered special for myself.
I wish he keeps smiling. I wish he stays sufficiently able to support the
family after him.
I was inspired to write this post by Housing.com's activity for writing Look Up Stories.
