Ishtiaque Rahman stepped out of the shower, and placed his wet feet on the cold tiles. He balanced himself between the towel rack and the sliding shower door. He grabbed a towel and began to dry his hair, a slight breeze passed through the tiny bathroom window. He looked at himself in the vanity mirror perched on the wall above the sink.
He smiled an awful lot, happy in his thoughts he decided to go out for a little walk through the bazaar. Perhaps make a few new friends. He came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel waist down and stood on the balcony gauging the weather. It appeared like a fine, sunny day.
A girl across his balcony was watering her plants. She was young and her flowing dark hair hid much of her face. Ishtiaque was unaware that new neighbours had moved in. Because he hadn’t seen her before. Quite a beauty, he reckoned, slim, tall, long black hair, without even looking at her face, he knew she would be a pretty little thing.
Ishtiaque dressed up and went out. He saw a few friends having coffee at the bazaar. They waved at one another. He went closer and sat down with them.
“How’re you all doing?” he asked.
“Pretty good, You?” one friend asked.
“Yeah, good. Homer’s Illiad is just so profound, every time I think of it, it opens to new
interpretations.”
“Yeh yeah, Shakespeare was too, his tragedies could be —-,” a friend chimed in.
“You know what, King Lear has that profound edge, as do Egyptian writers, too, the one who got the Nobel, Naguib Mahfouz, his Children of the Alley is such great depiction of culture and religious fervour.”
“It’s an allegory though, in which he —” another friend attempted to complete his sentence. But Ishtiaque cut in, “Yes, yes, Summerians, on the other hand, wrote great literature because they had been civilised for such a long time. Their equal could only be found in India.”
“Well, the ancient Indian texts —” a friend started.
“Yea, you know what I went to this cafe yesterday, I met these historians, and anthropologists, they don’t talk much. They just look at me when I talk. They probably don’t understand me, my learning and knowledge, I am you see, the deep well,” Ishtiaque said.
One friend looked at his wrist watch. By now all his other friends were quiet, contemplating on Ishtiaque, trying to understand his stance. The friend said he had to leave. Others stood up too.
Ishtiaque’s eyes darted from face to face. He stopped smiling. He also got up, and slowly returned to his apartment. The girl across the balcony had left. The plants wavered in the breeze. Ishtiaque rummaged through his book shelf and pulled out a magazine.