They have not yet sent the photographs. I am waiting for them, checking my inbox every ten minutes. I have never waited for photographs like this before. This is not the wait of someone who has fallen in love with a stranger and is waiting for her glimpse in a group photograph. This is not the wait of an anxious person who has done something that he is waiting to be reported in the morning's newspaper. This is not even the wait of a student who has found out of his success and only waiting for the official results to be announced. This is an ordinary person's wait for a chance to revisit some extraordinary moments. I am waiting for the pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge, in the words of Marianne Moore, of ‘that romantic passageway, first seen by the eye of the mind, then by the eye, waiting for pictures of that Climactic ornament, that double rainbow...
Yesterday, after lunch in one of Brooklyn's small art galleries, in a neighbourhood that looked like a workers' plantation on the sea-side some of us decided to walk across the famous bridge which was forever hanging upon our imagination. The lunch was Indian, the hosts American and the gathering multi-generational. The youngest among us was a three-month baby, who had come with her mother, an American Fulbrighter who had been on a Fulbright to India some years ago. I wouldn’t be sure of who was the oldest of us, though one Indian gentleman, a surgeon on Fulbright sweetly assumed the responsibility of thanking the organizers on the behalf of us, Indians, as “the senior-most, if not the oldest person” from India.
What is it that he has actually ‘crossed’ to be the oldest? What has age got to do with the number of years a man has passed? Who is young and who is not? Is the hundred twenty years old Brooklyn bridge new? Is New York, new?
I was thinking of all these questions when we walked across the bridge, seven of us Fulbrighters from all parts of India, marvelling at the energy of the cars that raced under that footwalkers lane, and under them, the slow, calm river. You couldn’t repeat with Bachhan, “Is paar priye madhu hai, tum ho/ us paar na jaane kya hoga” ( On this side sweetheart, are you, nectar of love/ Who knows what lies on the other?) for there was on the other side Manhattan, the most certain mass of human capital, arranged in dazzling symmetries, almost inviting you, making you feel as if you can walk upon the sky. Now to ask what is that on the other side, to ask if Manhattan is for real, would be considered blasphemy even by the most romantic of hearts. However much your real your love may be, Manhattan cannot be unreal.
The bridge, hanging upon the river, minimally touching her, like a stable volunteer to the cause of humanity who keeps himself away from the attractions of love, looked as human as all those who walked upon it. It was hanging, like we do between life and death, tied by the thousands of strings that weave a net of magic and strength. While we were all fixing our our cameras against the lights of New York and the indifferent sunset on the horizon, Kamran was reminded of his duty towards the Almighty, inspired as much by the vast sky as by the delicately trembling wood under his feet. This was perhaps his first evening in New York and he must have realized that the sun disappears quicker than it does in his native Aligarh in India. He chose himself a corner of the bridge, exactly above the middle of the river, between sky and water, between Brooklyn and Manhattan, between day and night, laid down a piece of a cloth and sat down with his beard brushing his chest, his Kurta covering his thighs, and offered his Namaaz, undisturbed, like the mighty bridge itself, by the swirl of movements around him. Rivers flow, the bridges stand still.
What kind of a bridge Kamran was at the moment, I wondered? What limits he inspires us to cross? What more do we need to bridge and how? What prayer he has for all of us?
The group-walk on the Brooklyn Bridge left me with questions while the rest returned home with their answers and the images in their cameras. I am waiting for the pictures to arrive in my inbox, and then perhaps I will be able to find my answers too!
