Where did you go?

When I pulled into the entrance to my building on Sunday night, I was greeted by the building’s security guard,a smooth skinned boy of only 15 or 16. He blandly opened the gate, and then peered in the car, and as he did his expression changed to exuberance and he gave me an flapping, energetic wave. I have been away for five weeks in the US. This was a much better welcome than I would receive a few minutes later from Uma (my dog), who peed upon my arrival.

Yesterday morning, as I walked past the oldies doing laughter yoga in a park across from my house, my neighbor, an old retiree with explosive Albert Einstein hair and a warm face looked over the fence and yelled, “Where did you go?” I waved back.

This morning, as I took Uma for her walk, I saw some of my other buddies. First, there was the chap who always hits on me—no shame at 6:30 in the morning, this guy. He must be about 60, with pockmarked skin and bright, dancing eyes. He generally sits with 4-5 other men his age stretching and kvetching on the waterfront. “You like Indian dogs?” he asked me once. Yes, I nodded. “So,” he said with a sparkle in his eye, “you like Indian men, too?” This morning, on the “boardwalk” I heard a hearty “Hello again!” and looked up to see him walking to meet up with his padres.

Later, when I went to my neighborhood coconut stand, the young proprietor, who lives in the slum near my house, a man with whom I have never exchanged a word except to order a coconut, gave me a shy, look of remembrance and welcoming. Meanwhile, the fresh juice woman, another person I’ve never actually spoken to, who sits next to the coconut seller, got out of her chair and came up to me and said, “You’re back! You were gone a long time. I thought you were sick. Bad health?”

Then there was the kid who biked past Uma and me as we walked back to the house. “John!” he yelled. “Hello, John!” This guy and his friends call my dog John—a story for another time—and there he was, noticing that “John” and I are back on the streets of Bandra.

I never realized that I was part of these people’s worlds—I only thought they were in mine. Their noticing, the simple acknowledgment of my absence, has made it kind of nice to be back.