The
Vijaya scooped to pick up the old photograph which had fallen as she moved her battered leather suitcase from off the top of the dusty and cobweb clustered wardrobe.
Photograph By Yusuf Martin
The photograph, now resting on a worn Axminster carpet, had fallen face down so she hadn’t notice its subject until she turned it over and gave out a little squeal of joy as she did so. She had long since forgotten about this photograph, taken by her brother long before she moved to London, taken before she had even thought to move out of her kampung, let alone the country. But there it was a little dusty and scratched with the passage of time, but still a poignant reminder of how life was back then, back before the advent of the race to match the west in everything her country could, back when life was still relatively simple ‐ this man’s smiling face reminded her of those times now so precious to her memory.
But how could she have forgotten this photograph, but she had in the turmoil of moving, rearranging her belongings time and time again as her life changed from single to married to divorced and remarried, still somehow this picture had followed her from the kampung and now to Roman Road, the flat, and the wardrobe. A small, thin, middle‐aged Indian man with crinkled dark, but greying, hair stood wearing a short sleeved white shirt and pale green shorts holding onto his black Hercules man’s bicycle. One hand was holding the chromium plated handlebar while the other was resting and holding onto red sheeting on top of a painted wooden box firmly affixed to the rear of his cycle by a makeshift wooden carrier. Painted on the side of the pale yellow box, in a soft blue was the
legend – Roti in hand painted capital letters, and inside the box, witnessed through the clear glass windowpanes, were regimental ranks of uncut bread seated on the upper most shelf and a variety of soft rolls on the lower. That day the Roti Man had turned his face to her little brother holding the camera, posed, and gave a broad smile as if to ensure his place in history and to remind Vijaya of gentler times amidst the stress and upheaval of modern city life. The man, his bread, her dear mother, her brother and sisters all now moved away from the kampung where the photograph was taken, existed in her memory for as long as she looked at that picture. Looking into this image of the man with his bicycle she could hear her mother’s soft voice calling in Tamil, gentling chastising her for buying sweet rolls when there was food on the table, cautioning her against standing in the hot afternoon sun for too long. He had been a gentle older man who arrived daily without fail to bring the family its bread, sometimes Vijaya’s mother would pass the time of day with him, but mostly just requested his wares and paid, not wanting to be seen gossiping. But Vijaya and her siblings liked to
gossip with the man, play with him, tease him about his bicycle and his age, secretly calling him names, behind his back, in the way that children are prone to. But that was nearly thirty year ago and much had changed in that time.
Vijaya carefully placed the photograph on the living room shelf, about midway between the kitchen and the large windows, and told herself that she really must buy a frame for it. She turned and opened the French windows to her thirteenth floor flat to get some fresh air into the musty room, and in so doing allowed a gust of wind to lift and carry the fragile photograph and her ephemeral memories away.
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