sival

Sival is the gentleman who tends to our yard. He is, by trade, a gardener. In truth, he is the neighborhood Don, who has his finger on the pulse of all of Chamiers Road. He commands a solid control over the movement of “trash”, which here is always just raw materials. He has a habit of being nowhere in sight and then miraculously appearing beside you when you need him. He is fiercely protective of our compound and the neighborhood thugs are either afraid of him or work for him or, often, both. He is extremely quiet and does not “speak English”, though he understands every word spoken and his lips are so tightly sealed that outsiders can't extract information from him for love nor money. He religiously wears the traditional Indian lungi (a long men's skirt that, for work, is pulled up and around the waist to form a sort of short pant) and is always covered in dirt, as he is a gardener by trade. He is, however, known to pull his camera phone from the folds of his lungi and take pictures of his plants. Sival has been here in our compound long before us and he will be here long after we have gone. He's my favorite person, mostly because of the frog story. He thinks that I'm funny because I go shopping on foot and carry my grocery bags home. By myself. In the street. This always makes him laugh.