The Hermit

Prologue
One day I sat on a bench near the Sankey tank, watching the ducks and pigeons. My thoughts were interrupted by an old man in his nineties may be. He had wrinkles all over his face and he looked very pale and took steps with the help of his walking stick. I assumed he wanted to sit on the bench and I got up to give him seat.

The old man smiled at me and said, “Thank you Putta.” I smiled and was about to leave when he called, “Nikitha, come here what were you thinking?” I was shocked; I wondered how he knew my name. I was scared too. I always had this problem of being stalked and teased. But then I just thought maybe I should ask him that. “How do you know my name?” The old man calmly replied, “You are Nikitha Hingad who writes poetry on facebook.

I am one of the poets in your friend’s list. Didn’t you recognize me?” I was still unsure. Then I said, “Hello Uncle, I don’t remember. Do you write poetry as well?” He said, “Putta, No, I read and follow you on FB. I read a lot. I think you have a great potential but you are very impatient. You just post your poems without reading them.”

“Yeah, Uncle, sometimes I use short forms and have forgotten my grammar cause of SMS lingo. Most of my poems are spontaneous. Thanks for reading.” I said, believing him and glad I found a reader. Then he said, “You should write short stories.” “I think I won’t able to do that. And where do I look for stories. There is so much in stories, creating characters, plot…” I replied. “You will write stories which I will tell you. I have plenty of them.” He said encouragingly. “But I hardly know you and I can’t take credits for it.” “Putta, you don’t have
to meet me or chat with me on facebook. I know you don’t like it. But I will tell you all my tales.”

He looked at me smilingly. This time I thought he is crazy old man and I should take a move and then he said, “I am a time traveller. People call me different names, Baba, Anna, Thata… I will appear whenever people need me. And you will tell my tales to everyone.” And sun shone brightly on my face; almost blinded me and then vanished behind the clouds. And I opened my closed eyes and the old man was gone.