Attar Vendor ( Part- 2, Concluding episode ) —

(Recap – In the first part, I mentioned how I came into contact with an attar vendor, who by chance visited my office. This incidence goes back about thirty- five years. There, I queried him about the place from where he had come and how he managed to run his business at this far away place. In response to that, he narrated an air tight story. The narration erased all my doubts about his vending of attar in a door to door mode. After narrating the story, he asked my permission to show case his aromatic products in the name of attar.)

The truth was, I was mesmerized by his arduous, dedicating marketing spirit, he just had narrated in his story. From inside  his bag now he extracted out some middle sized glass bottles. Every such bottle contained its own kind of attar in the name of rose, jasmine, mango, khas-khas, sandal and keveda ( Pandan leaf extract,)  and so many other kinds. He took out a small glass needle type miniature rod, dipped that into one bottle and applied a minute streak over my back of palm and asked me to smell that. It was a divine experience to inhale that sweet fragrance through nostrils. In total, he made me smell in, so many varieties so that at the last I became confused.

At the last, hypnotically I purchased some vials of rose and sandal attar. No doubt, it costed me high than English perfume but had a soothing after effect, for the money I paid. He collected his money and left. After that, he visited again after one month period and later on his visits became frequent fortnightly. Never it occurred to me at that time, how could he manage to visit my city every fortnight, despite his hotchpotch business schedule. In all, he became the regular visitor and I his permanent customer. Even our terms came to such a comfort zone, on his visit some times I might be in want of money, in that case, he began to sell me his products on credit. Even a time came, when I owed him a substantial amount for my this vagrant hobby.

Yes! One thing I remarkably noticed about his visit. He always visited my office on a fix day of the Tuesday. One thing more, in between I also gleaned some information about the genuineness of Attar. An old, experienced retired man told me of one unique feature  of attar. He told, whenever a pure attar is applied over cloth, it does not leave any stain after application.  But here, attar I was applying, always happened to leave some oily stains behind, over the shirt. No doubt the quality and piercing effect of aromatic fragrance ever remained intact.

Now before finishing this, I have to deviate from the main stream. The locality I happened to reside, people of some worth, there followed a custom. Although, local cremation grounds were present in the city and village sides and majority of people happened to take their dead there. But people of my locality preferred to take the dead body of family person for cremation to a nearby religious city of Haridwar in a motor bus.The reason being, this religious city was at a distance of about fifty km from my foot hill city. After cremation, all people who attended this last funeral procession used to take a dip into the holy water of river Ganges and then all such visitors were fed a day time meal at some fixed restaurant.

This process of feeding all people took a considerably long time; hence some people who consumed their meal earlier, upon having free extra-time used to wander in the  narrow streets of Har- ki – pouri ( stairs of the god) market. They were already informed of a fix time to get collected at the parked motor -bus to board on and  retreat home. Likely to that, In a dead body ritual, I too attended the funeral procession and along with that reached to Haridwar city. After taking meal, when I was roaming in the river side upper market of Haridwar, I felt an urge for natural call for peeing.

I asked a shopkeeper whether there was some urinal facility nearby.  He pointed me to  a side by  going very narrow street and told, “after some paces on left side of the street comes a barber shop and in front of that, on the other side of the narrow street, you may find an open air urinal for gents.” I was feeling pressure heavily , so I rushed hurriedly and for long remained busy emptying my bladder there. Here I am sure, open air urinals is an old concept and perhaps reader might be knowing about it. It’s like a construction, in which some partitions on the side are constructed up to some height( up to the chest at the utmost and upper portion remained free). Here when you are peeing you can look at your neighboring peeing man.

When I was about to finish my urine load, mean while I noticed, from the backside barber shop, one of the staff members rushed in hurry to my side partition and began peeing engrossed by himself. Not only this, a faint soothing sweet odor too reached my nostrils, that at once recalled me of attar.  I turned my neck to the side of that man, it at once startled me. It was the same attar-vendor, now clad in pant and shirt. He was having a small sized towel on his left shoulder. The towel by which barbers wipe the face of client after shaving. I could not commit error in recognizing the man.

He too winced finding me there but at once resumed his composure and behaved, as if, he was looking at me for the first time in the life. But his primary expressions had already betrayed him. The first though generated in my mind was, ” this fraudulent didn’t belong to District Kannauj, he was a barber in my adjacent district. Since Tuesday had been the day fixed as “holiday” for all barber shops in Northern India, this man on every Tuesday, in the get up of a traditional Kannauj’s attar vendor man visited at my city and in disguise sold me the spurious attar. I was not going to spare this cheat.”

I at once became hyper and snarled at him, “Oh Mister! You are a barber here in my neighboring district and  you ever happened to claim yourself a vendor from district Kannauj and in that disguise sold me spurious attar.” But to my astonishment, his demeanor was superb. The barber with a composure and steady voice said , ” Sir, you are mistaking me of someone else. I am meeting you for the first time in my life.” When he spoke, his voice removed my extra suspicion. The same pitch and frequency of sound resonated there which I was accustomed to here in our conversations.

As I just told, he was too dealing in attar vending, his person still faintly fragranted with the same aroma. I replied furiously, “how much lie you can speak you speak. But so many times I have met you, hence I know I am not wrong on my part in recognizing you as such. Any how you visit me next time, then I will clear your score.” My this threat flabbergasted him and in a desultory fashion he rushed back in to his barber shop. The end of the story is, never in future again, the same attar vendor visited me not even to collect his credit. ( End of the story,) Penned by — Vinay Pharasi —–