The dust clouds dance like ghosts in the emptying streets. There is hardly any shade anywhere. There are hardly any trees. The tobacco stalls provide the only shade to its respective seller, and each is sleeping his siesta until the evening air comes to his rescue. The fruit sellers have pulled their carts along with the goods to some shady area near the shops, and they are taking refuge under the carts. It's a quiet street; there aren't cars going up and down, not even air conditioned cars. He stops pedaling and surveys the dusty street. The two boys he had seen earlier still are working tirelessly in the sewage. Their bodies still covered in the blackness that is the refuse of this colorless city. The street in about 100 meters will intersect with another street, a bigger one, perhaps there he can find more business. His colleagues or competitors are mostly squeezing under the awning of some restaurant whose owners are too sleepy to kick them out. Few, like this man, are still roaming around at 1:30 in the afternoon when the sun is at its most merciless. It doesn't rain now; the dry season is at its end but there is no sign of rain; the only reason to hope for rain is history. History says since it is already the beginning of June, rain is inevitably close. But how close?
No one is hailing for his service on the street. At 1:30PM he is lucky to give one ride a week. But his hopes are bigger than his reasoning. But he is still young, so both naïveté and strength help. He stands on his right foot as it descends on the pedal with the weight of his gaunt body and the rickshaw creeks its way forward. There are no brakes, and it is stopped either by its own internal friction or his feet. Brakes are too costly to maintain, and he has to pay for all the maintenance in addition to renting the rickshaw. It's a no-brainer job, they think. But it's not. He has to negotiate, sometimes swindle, depending on the appearance of the customer, to maximize the income, and therefore the profit margin, because that meager margin is what he can take back to his even younger wife and two children. He reaches the intersection. True, there is slightly more traffic at the traffic circle, but hardly any pedestrians that aren't just beggars equally hopeful for some income. He wipes his forehead with his rumal and readjusts it. A violent sound of honking almost stuns him off his seat as an white Ambassador screeches by. He can't see the driver or the passengers, but he hears the cursing appropriate for his low caste and peasant background. His emaciated and hazel color face makes a frown and he spits out his red saliva that has been nurturing the last bit of paan in his mouth. A quiet murmur of insult is release and fades in the dry and noisy air of the traffic circle. Nearly exactly opposite of him is a group of rickshaws in which its wallah is sleeping. It's too hot to even have a chat, and definitely not a chai. But that's not what the man in tattered, dirty shirt is looking at. His eyes has grown curious and his exposed arms and legs seem to have forgotten the sun beating down on him.
He is looking at the center of the traffic circle. There, in the midst of all the pollution from the cars and autos, is a man sitting, propped up by the statue that forms the center of the circle. The statue is of three women smiling and welcoming people into this section of the city. It's a sculpture hardly anyone pays attention to, let alone know the meaning of. But the rickshaw-wallah sees the ridiculous and even pitiful aura around this man. He is close enough to discern the eyes. They are looking down the street he had come up from. That man isn't really looking at anything. He is staring into the distance with thoughts. But he looks almost dead. Maybe he is dead and is just drying up like a raisin in this sun. His face is gaunt like the rickshaw-wallah's. In fact, there are many features that resemble him. And the more he looks at that man in the middle of the traffic circle, the more he sees the resemblance, so much so that that man's only difference from him is that he isn't even wearing a rumal. But the way he is sitting, the way he stares blankly into the distance, produces another difference: this man is staring into hopelessness. Whatever is his story, that story has snuffed out the last bit of his light in his soul. That's what the rickshaw-wallah sees, the emptiness. That man is just sitting there, revolved by all the busyness of a city that doesn't really go anywhere, all this noise around him while his heart is of an empty silence, or silent emptiness.
Another loud honking startles the rickshaw-wallah. This is a different car, so not as loud as the one blasted by the Ambassador earlier. He realizes that he is overheating. It's too hot standing in the sun even if he is watching his own reflection minus hope. And so he steps on his right pedal and off he goes again. Even as he prepares himself to a short siesta, the look of his twin remains in his mind. What does it take to lose all hope? Can the sun just dries it out, squeezes it out of you?
