Coach

All but the coach were on board. We had driven all night and now as the sun rose we were a couple hours away from Dharamsala. We had stopped for tea at a make-shift street kitchen, built of corrugated iron and with rusty metal seating kicking up sand and earth from the ground. Our driver, some passengers and a few locals had eaten something liquidy with their hands from metal tins, and now everyone was back on board. Except for the coach.

The bus revvs its engine, slides forward a a bit, signalling it can leave at any moment. But the coach remains in his place on the sidewalk, looking into the middle distance down the waking village street. His glance is not sleepy. It is sharp. His milky coffee moves slowly to his pursed lips, and then the warm biscuit.

The bus again revvs its engine. A request and a warning. If the coach noticed, he does not care.

Here is a man who knows his importance in the world, I think while pressing my forehead against the window. His entire cricket team is sleepy and silent in the back of the waiting bus. He knows no bus driver will separate them. So the coach will have his breakfast. Finish his morning thoughts.

Here is a man, I think enviously, who knows that the world always has, and always will, revolve around him.