The aging, somewhat disfigured potato felt bad I didn’t pick
it. I could sense it.
“I haven’t bought a refrigerator yet, so I can’t take too
many of you”, I muttered in my defense.
The potato stared meekly at me, “Really? That’s why?”
“Well, of course”, I half-lied.
He kept interrogating, “Why don’t you replace the one in
your hand with me?”
“Because you were down there, hidden behind him. And many
more. I have already picked your friend, someone else will pick you. What’s the
big deal?” I shrugged.
The potato responded calmly, a tinge of sadness spilling
through his words, “He’s not a friend. I am old. He pushed me off the queue to
grab the prime spot.”
“Oh, come on. That lady there- you see? She’ll pick you.”
“No, tell me- Do you humans also treat your old fellows in
this manner?”
Not recognizing where this was going, I said, “What are you
talking?”
“I have been waiting here for the last two days, rotting. My
lord has been trying to sell me off but…”- he showed me the scars.
“But won’t you anyway get killed if I take you home?”
With a sense of wisdom characteristic only of aging
potatoes, he responded, “In our world, that’s how we prefer dying. I’ve heard
stories of how you prefer getting killed in a war rather than in a road
accident.”
“Umm, I wouldn’t prefer either, but yeah, it’s kind of
true.”
“For us, jumping into the frying pan means getting cleansed
of all our sins before we die. It’s an honorable death. And in our next life,
we might as well be reborn as human beings.”
I was awe-struck- “Do you really want to be reborn as a
human being?”
“Unless you too leave your old men to rot”, asked the
potato, a shred of doubt clouding his face.
While I was wondering how to respond, I was distracted by a
poor man in a tattered shirt haggling with the thelawaala over the price of potato. They settled for a discount
for the bad potatoes.
Before I could turn to the old potato, he was gone. Sitting
pretty in the poor man’s basket, with his contemporaries.
I was relieved. Or so
I thought.
From the basket, he looked skywards, apparently thanking for
the act of Providence. Then he turned toward me- “Do you believe in God?”
“No!” I almost chided him.
“Then, have you ever
wondered why most of your old folks happen to believe in God?”
I could take it no more. I hurriedly paid for my potatoes
and left.
