In the changing light of day.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

No clipped grass. No flower beds. No monuments. And yet, this singular bench in central Delhi’s Shivaji Stadium bus terminal always remains saturated in tranquil sakoon and shanti, a thing typical of an idyllic park bench.

Before you risk reading further, dear reader, here’s a disclosure. The precise locale of our story is too ordinary. That said, shouldn’t the ordinary be also celebrated?

This afternoon, all is silent around the bench. An elderly gent is sitting alone with a large yellow envelope bearing the words “MRI report,” printed in bold. He is motionless, gazing straight ahead. The afternoon sunshine is streaming through the leaves of an adjacent pilkhan tree, falling on his anxious face. The man shows no alertness, the kind identified with a harried commuter awaiting a bus.

To think of it, this is a bus terminal, but hardly any bus is passing by (though the terminal is the starting point of no. 620, Delhi’s most scenic bus route). The place is in fact as sleepy as one of those deserted railway stations where no trains stop. Even so, a few people are occasionally walking past the bench… oh look, rat! The tiny thing emerges from under the loosened tiles under the bench, darts out to the roadside, swiftly picks up a discarded apple core in its mouth, and runs back, disappearing under the tiles.

Minutes later, a man in black mask settles down on the bench, beside the man with the MRI report.

As the afternoon slowly shifts to evening, the winter sunshine turns gold. The two men are long gone, the bench is vacant. So far, no dramatic event has unfolded. It is like watching one of those acts in a Chekhov play where nothing seems to happen, and yet everything happens. Indeed, hovering around the bench for a good part of day turns out to be fascinating, albeit in unexpected ways. Observing the occasional passers-by, for instance, fills the mind with great curiosity about their life. Additionally, the changing texture of the daylight is constantly altering the mood of the place. In the end, when it is time to leave, you feel as if you have travelled over a long distance from one destination to another.

On returning to the bench at night, it is permeated with a different character than what it was bearing in the afternoon.