At the corner of the street, an indigo blue enamel name plate, announced the Rue Romain Rollard. Its well-swept pavement was punctuated by poodle-tail, pollarded trees. The handsome buildings, paint-washed in Naples yellow and rose madder, were softened by overhanging bougainvillea. They reflected a stunning light into the clean and orderly street. By the Hotel de l’Orient, a passing cyclist called out in a strange accent, ‘Bonjour, ca va?’. This was India.
The powerful had once lived here in White Town, a small coastal stretch of the city now called Puducheri, formerly known as Pondicherry.
Stepping out beyond its boundary of the stinking canal, I left White Town and entered a different Puducheri, an Indian Puducheri, where the streets had no name plate at all; and under the weight of a seething humanity, the pavements could hardly be seen. In sharp contrast these streets were littered, unordered, devoid of poodle tails.
A horde of pedestrians, rickshaws and motorbikes, along with the occasional cow, wove themselves in four directions through the grid pattern of streets. I was amongst them, trying to resist those surging currents. I wanted to travel slowly in order to observe, for there was no other purpose to my visit that day.
The crowds became denser, the current grew stronger. It carried me along, suspended, past the landmark India Coffee House, emitting its comforting smells of vegetable cutlets, scrambled eggs and milky coffee. Up front was a sea of bobbing heads, bubbling like boiling black tar. Occasionally, amongst them, a small white dot would appear. Just as quickly, it would disappear.
I was staggering over the broken paving stones when it appeared again. My attention was diverted by the slide of my left flip-flop, landing on a fresh cow pat. Regaining my balance I looked up. The white dot had once again disappeared.
I continued into the heat of the blazing sun, the same white dot kept re-appearing and disappearing. It began to mesmerise me.
Taken by the throng, I drew closer. I could identify it as the head of a figure draped in khadi cotton cloth. Its shape and size suggested a female head. I drew a few feet closer, allowing me to see that the same white cloth covered the whole figure. The head was slightly bowed, the shoulders a little hunched, and the upper spine arched forwards. It was walking freely, but supported by a long wooden staff.
My first assumption was that this was the usual dress of a widow. The gait and pace suggested that she was elderly.
Such outcast women drew my sympathy as they had a hard life, often devoid of hope and income; they had little support. My next assumption was that she would hold out her hand to passers-by. I manoeuvred myself a little closer, so that I could discretely drop a few rupees into it, if she were to seek alms. My fingers rotated through the loose change in my pocket, as I considered what might be an appropriate amount. It was a decision worthy of consideration.
The crowd thickened further as we approached a junction, as busy as all the others. Beads of sweat stung my eyes. The crowd swept me one way, the traffic pushed me another, the white dot, caught in the eddying maelstrom. On the diagonal corner, an imposing building housed a restaurant with four steps up to the entrance. I had now lost the dot. I let it go, dropped my shoulders and relaxed the coins in my pocket.
I dodged my way across the junction, between the car horns and the bicycle bells, the rumbling hand carts and the shouts of hauliers. Each screaming sound attacked me from a different direction. I washed up near the restaurant, the undertow taking me closer to the steps, when the dot re-appeared. It slowly rose above the waves of black-hair as the figure beneath it climbed the four steps. Fighting the buffeting, I tried to stand still. I was close enough to see the hand within the white cloth reach out to the restaurant owner, who sat at his counter, taking the money at the entrance to his business.
I reached the foot of the four steps when the figure turned, and her youthful, sparkling ebony eyes made direct contact with mine. I froze in the sweltering heat as she brushed passed me. She was serene. Her skinunblemished, she had not reached thirty.
When I came to, I climbed the steps and looked on the restaurant owner’s counter; there was a small pile of leaflets advertising an event at a nearby convent.
My curiosity appeased, I quickly turned my head to look back along the street, and the evanescent white dot had become but a cherished memory.