Repose
He sits, hands on his thighs, staring resolutely ahead. His features are finely picked out, he wears a surprisingly à la mode beard and a traditional hat. His seat is an elaborately carved and comfortable looking chair. He is guarded by a black angel, who hovers, wings outstretched, over him. The pose is protective and watchful. The angel’s face shows concern and caring for this man. He is flanked by somewhat incongruous companions. A Greek discus thrower and a lady with a pot. Both impersonal and detached, in the manner of the Ancients. All of them are grouped gracefully in a little garden, dominated by a beautiful Nagalinga tree (Cannonball tree) in full bloom. The family and friends who seated him there must have loved him enough to give him the company of celestial and mortal beings alike.
In the neighbouring gardens on each side of his little arbor live two Colossi of their time. A Father and An Uncle. They stand isolated and separated from each other, on high pedestals once meant to inspire admiration and awe. Nowadays, the same pedestal serves to place them in full public gaze, ripe for ridicule and mockery. There is no angel to watch over these men, nor is there a beautiful tree to shade their once venerable heads. They too stare ahead, with never ending optimism. Uncle’s garden is dismally neglected, a jumble of overgrown shrubbery and wild grass. Father stands in the middle of a manicured garden, but is under strict isolation. No one may enter his green prison anymore or greet him, except from afar. Not too many years before, little children gathered at his feet, laughing, playing, keeping the old man company. Now he seems resigned to his lonely fate. A little smile never leaves his lips. This city is too busy anyway to bother with old men of obsolete principles and ethics. Perhaps once a year, on his birthday, some unworthy men and women might visit him and give him some token attention. Otherwise, he stands alone. No, not quite alone. The seated gentleman and his companions occupy a small corner of his garden. Perhaps the two men converse late at night. They are not contemporaries but one at least has knowledge of the other’s strength of character. They shared many commonalities, though one was an industrialist moulded in Western philosophy and the other a lawyer who became a reluctant saint.
The seated gentleman is Jamshetji Tata. He is not instantly recognisable like his two companions but he is fortunate in his companionship with angels and showers of gorgeous flowers. This is his city, and here he sits for an eternity. He looks pensive sometimes in the evening light. He worries, I believe, for the future of a country that has no further use for the likes of him and his two lonely neighbours.
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