The Weight of the Past

I could not get the image of him out of my mind.

All the way home, I kept seeing him beneath the banyan tree—sitting with his hands resting on his knees, watching the road as if he had nowhere else to go.

It was the same man I had known as a boy.

And yet, when I looked at him that afternoon, I had not recognised him at first.

The dust had settled on my shoes by the time I reached home. My brother was sitting on the porch. He looked up.

“Did you give him anything?” I shook my head.

“No. He helped me as a friend. How could I pay him for that?”

My brother did not answer at once. He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the newspaper folded in his hand.

“You still remember him as he was,” he said. I looked at him.

“The boy with the bike.”

For a moment, I could see it again—the blue motorcycle, polished so carefully that the afternoon sun used to flash from its tank. He would ride through the village slowly, not because the road was bad, but because there was no reason to hurry. At the tea stall, he would sit with his friends, one leg resting over the other, while the shopkeeper kept pouring tea into small glasses.

His father had money then. Everyone knew it. The boy did not have to tell anyone.

He wore a new shirt to weddings and festivals. His shoes were always clean. If he wanted something, it appeared sooner or later. When we were young, we sometimes stood near the road watching him start the motorcycle. If one of us asked for a ride, he would smile and say, “Go and study first.”

We laughed with him, though sometimes we laughed after he had gone. His father used to worry.

I remember seeing the old man sitting outside their house in the evenings, counting something in a small notebook. Once, when the boy came home late, his father asked him what he intended to do with his life.

The boy stood there for a while.

Then he said, “There is plenty of time.”

His father looked at him, but said nothing more. There did seem to be plenty of time.

Then his father died.

After that, things changed without making much noise.

The land remained. The house remained. But money did not come merely because there was land or a house. There were papers to understand, debts to settle, crops to arrange, people to deal with. Things that his father had been doing quietly for years now came to him all at once.

He had never noticed them before.

The motorcycle was sold first. Then, slowly, the rest went with it.

The tea-stall crowd became smaller. The new shirts stopped coming. People who had once found reasons to sit with him began finding reasons to leave.

Years passed.

My brother folded the newspaper and placed it beside him.

“He may not ask,” he said. “That does not mean he is managing.” I said nothing.

I kept thinking of the man under the banyan tree that afternoon.

His face had looked tired. His shirt had been washed many times. When he stood up, he had placed one hand on his knee before straightening himself.

I had noticed these things.

I had simply not let them stay in my mind.

I looked down at my shoes and rubbed one against the other. The dust stayed.

I got up. I walked back towards the village.

I found him near the well, washing his face. He looked up when he heard my footsteps.

Neither of us spoke.

I took the folded notes from my pocket and held them towards him. “For your help today.”

He looked at the money. Then at me. His hand remained at his side.

For a few moments, the water from the tap ran between us and fell into the stone trough.

Then he reached out and took the notes.

His fingers touched mine. “Thank you,” he said. I nodded. I turned and walked back.

The afternoon was thinning. Somewhere behind the houses, a bicycle bell rang once and stopped.

The banyan tree was still visible at the bend. I kept walking.

After a while, it disappeared. The road ahead was empty.

I walked on, with the dust still on my shoes.