droplets

in that may night at gangotri temple people swarmed and bent like bees.
all in the temple chessboard lighting and exchanging sweets. I wonder whether this orange dressed sadhus walking up and down india felt at home, felt at peace in that place or they sensed the call of the road.
Or maybe the road is still to those that live in it.
There was this tall and thin old man . Bespectacled and frail, as if worn down by the wind and the sun. Makes me think of my dad, maybe everybody would think of his dad or how he can be in some few years.
He was sitting below the bell and was putting on again his shoes, they ressembled those espadrillas , no strings.
and he seemed not to manage to put the foot in any of them . So he tries and tries
and other people come by. Some old lady they come and small talk with him and with other bypassers . one  lady offers to help him but he gestures that he can do alone; again he bends his head over his shoes. He seems to manage to slip the first foot in. The second one is more demanding and there he sits on and on trying to get the second shoe on. His legs are so long and he looks like a gigant double legged spider all corners and bends. Another lady, another friend I guess, motherlike offers to help again and again he makes sign all is fine. And he goes on and on. All these ladies trying to help and the humble pride of the old man to manage his feet. (Does he feel alone here below the mountains? is it family to have somebody asking you if you need help? does he feel fragile ? or is it just me that feels so looking at him and thinking of me?)
then he steps up , now he is tall , long , longer and he has his stick to walk on . I do not know whether he managed to slip in his second foot or he let go and preferred to move on with his foot half out. He has already disappeared in the crowd along the ghats, maybe in a very few days from my memories.

 How small we all are... this is immortality...