The Lunatic

A retired man in his sixties with sporting gear on, before starts his morning walk, stops briefly for a moment, before a temple. There, he position himself by tilting his legs in one direction simultaneously twists his whole body (mildly) in other direction towards closed sanctum, then he brings both his hand close together, raises above his head and offer his prayer. As he start walking, a omni crossed him, after taking right from adjoining road, saunters almost hundred meters before its head light beam turns off.

A middle aged woman steps out of omni and strolls towards rear end of the van. As she tries to have rear door opened, a man of her age gets down from chauffeur seat, with rolled vinyl poster. And she held rear door for a while before having it clamped by hinges on both sides. By now man of her age also finished unwinding poster almost splashed it across omni van body by strapping a thread to its luggage rail. And poster reads as “Iyarkai Muligai Marunthu Chaaru (Natural Herbal Medical Syrup)”

It looks retired man is one of the regulars in jogging circuit, he exchanges few greetings with fellow walkers, increases his walking pace to its maximum, moving toward halted omni. As he strode past omni, he could see the make shift herbal drink parlor, eight pot utensils interspersed along with stacked tumbler in a metal table. By now middle aged woman lights agarbathi (incense stick) swings it thrice around those utensils before plugging it into it's stand.

Soon customer started beelines parlor for their day’s energy drink by then retired man completes his first lap, it's when his ears got treated by hymn praising lord emanates from a distance. He tried spotting its source, through high hanging low lit sodium vapor lamp, which brings the scantiest light of all, at that instance all he could see is shadow of some human. Quickly got the co-ordinates of the source deduced there should be a deity at that point since three roads converges there.

As he moves closer to source, could see a bearded man like a sage, sweeping the floor then cleans it by sprinkling water, post cleaning he carefully takes out flower from polythene bag, wraps it around dome like structure, offers some food then raises his both hand above his head and offered his prayer. He inches closer to deity now, before he get's glimpse of it, his sight got blinded for a moment, by full beam of a container carrier which crossed that junction.

His blurred sight slowly wear off, as he prepare himself to pay his obeisance then when he got distracted, as he had just come to know that bearded man offered his obeisance to meager stone and not to a deity, where few crows landed now and started pecking those food. This bewildered act of bearded man pushed him to check his sanity who now paddles his cycle elegantly towards east. And it looks universal truth didn't shaken up during the course as sun hasn't changed its rising direction!!!