The Fool

No one knew anything about him. You could find him in marketplace, playground, at the corridor of the church, backyard of the temple etc. Some even claimed that he possessed the phenomenon of bi-location. But nobody even knew where he came from or what his name was. People called him ‘fool’. An old worn out T-shirt, coupled with a tattered trouser and a pair of abandoned slippers completed his paraphernalia of daily attire; an archetypal outfit of a rag-picker. He often spotted thick stubble of beard, which competed with his long whiskers and unkempt hair. He seldom embraced silence, for a mysterious humming accompanied him throughout his expeditions in and through the village. The thin, slender figure was never a botheration for the villagers, but a laughing stock for the youngsters who embraced laziness as the sole goal of their youth-hood. Nothing daunted the ‘fool’, for he lived his life to its fullness. He spent lion share of his day in the marketplace, doing all kinds of jobs, those fetched him something to satiate his burning hunger. He never demanded any remuneration for his works, if given he would reciprocate with a broad smile, and refused he would walk away with his long face stooping the head down.

Whenever a menial work was spotted, the ‘fool’ would be called in, he would complete such works with ease. Every time, people addressed him as ‘fool’ he showed no emotional imbalances, for he eccentrically enjoyed it though. In fact, nobody knew what his spoken dialect was, whenever he was happy and agile, he would produce some strange noise which always enthralled the people. But he cared for an abandoned mother who used to stay at the entrance of the market. He identified rightly the language of the hunger, for he made it a point to share with this poor mother, the meager food that he earned out of the mercy of the villagers. The ‘fool’ embraced her as his own mother and cared for her without any fail. Once as he was back to her with her share of food, he strangely found an unusual crowd surrounding his ‘mother’. As he drew closer to her, he found her pale body, abandoned and disowned by all the bystanders. With a broad smile in his face sat near her and attempted to feed her but in vain. Someone in the crowd managed to convince him that his mother was no more. He lifted his mother like a bag of rice, without any sentiments, and left for the crematorium. People exclaimed, “look at the fool carrying her like a bag of rice”. They called him “fool”. The days fell by, and the fool kept to his routine steadily.

When he returned a bag full of money, found in the market to the real owner some intellectuals called him ‘fool’. When he risked his life to save a child from a burning house, people called him ‘fool’. And when he was found abandoned in the corridor of the general hospital with 75% of burns, nurses called him ‘fool’. And finally, when his body was found shrill and inert in the murky corner of the mortuary, the attender called him ‘fool’. But the fool refused to give up a serene smile from his lips even after his soul departed bidding him farewell forever, for he was a ‘fool’.