The flower vendor sat on the footpath surrounded by baskets of flowers. The
silence of the calm and peace all around, was palpable. A Mynah descended from
the skies and skipped playfully very close to her. She had never been this
close to a mynah, not in thirty years of her selling flowers in this area.
She would sit at the entrance to the park, stringing together
either mallige(jasmine)
or kanakambaram(crossandra)
flowers. Other varieties of fresh flowers – pink, red, yellow, orange roses
would lie in her basket waiting eagerly, to spread their fragrance in the right
home. She would also have a stock of fresh tulasi and bilavapatre leaves
in a special basket. They were offerings that most devout Bangaloreans offered
at the feet of the divine without fail.
Everyday, she would see multitudes of people enjoy the early
morning Sun, the luxury of fresh air and the twittering of birds. The park
would transform into a vibrant ecosystem of a variety beings from the human,
animal and avian kingdom enjoy their slice of unadulterated happiness.
Teenagers would jog their way around in bright tank tops and
tights, oblivious to their surroundings with ears plugged with head phones. The
older lot would congregate in groups of five or six exchanging the latest tid
bits of political gossip. Saree clad ladies would walk around in gleaming white
sports shoes enlightening each other with variations in recipes to make that
puliyogare a little more tangy or share their woes of managing work and home.
Each morning she would sell her wares to these morning walkers on
their way back home.
“How much do you charge for a moLa of mallige, one
bunch of tulasi leaves
and some of these pink roses?”, a customer would ask.
(MoLa is a unit of measurement of stringed mallige flowers which
translates to the length of a hand)
“Thirty rupees for the mallige, five for
the tulasi leaves
and twenty for a fistful of flowers,” she would say.
This would be followed by instances of haggling and bargaining for
a discounted price until a mutually acceptable figure would be arrived at.
The flower vendor would then pack the flowers in a small plastic
packet if the customer did have his own cloth bag. The plastic pack would cost
an extra five bucks. Each day, she earned just about enough to make ends meet.
The flower garlands would then be used to decorate the idols in
temples present in each domestic household, the tulasi/bilvapatre leaves
would then go to the feet of the deity and the left over flowers would be used
to deck up the outer periphery of the temple.
But today, there was no such scene. People were conspicuous by
their absence. She was all alone on the deserted footpath, surrounded only by
her flowers, mute and stationery as always, until the mynah landed beside her
for company.
“Oh, you are selling flowers today also?” asked a pedestrian, in
his late fifties. He was a regular customer but she was startled by the sound
of his voice, all the same.
“Yes sir. What shall I give you today? The usual Mallige with tulasi leaves?”
she asked starting to measure out the flowers.
“Yes, I will buy them. But have you not heard about the lockdown?
Nobody’s going to be out here for the next month,” he said.
The flower vendor handed over the flowers and sat quietly. How
would she survive for the next thirty days without her flower business?
Word Prompt: Pedestrian
