Gratitude Unforgotten.

                                                            Last day, my sight caught the attention of the man who runs a cycle repair shop nearby the bank, where I'm tied to my banking transactions. It's been years, he has been working there in that same old spot with no accompaniments for his help. In our childhood days, my brother and I used to check the air in our bicycles and also visited him when our cycles dumps us all of a sudden on a particular occasion. 

Ever since then, he is all the more same. I was getting on my two-wheeler and just then I saw him busy attending to the bicycles and punctured tyres. Even on a sultry sweating noon, he seems not bothered by the heat sitting under the black asbestos roofed shelter besides the main road.

I stood there, looking at him for some time, reminiscing our old childhood days and his part in our lives to repair the bicycles at lucid intervals. Characteristics of old age has also visited him. His hands and clothes were stained with grease and oil as usual, wrinkles of hard work has invaded his face but his lust to work has not faded.

On a momentary note, he saw me looking at him. He smiled at me and shook his head like he knew me for ages. Maybe, he might have recognized me. 

The shifting of time period made me realize that I'm a 25 year old guy now from the transition of a 7th grader to the present working scenario. Though it was years, he might have understood that my bicycle has at least once, gone through his magical hands.

I too gave a smile back and waved my hand. That was the simple gratitude I could give him rather than sympathy.