Gtex

I saw him just as I had seen him for the last 15 years of my life-stooped over his table, a pencil tucked in the gap between his ears, he would suddenly stop and look into his books to check a particular figure and then use the customary blue-colored soap to make his markings on the cloth. I met Ganesh when I was 7 years old. It was time for schools to start and after having purchased the cloth for my uniform, my dad took me to Gtex-the name of the establishment run by Ganesh. As long as I have known the shop, I have never seen anybody else in it. He ran his tailoring business with consummate ease. He had a bald head with little patches of hair on either side, a swarthy complexion and a clear skin. I was always fascinated by his ears and the way he balanced the pencil between them.

The first time we met, he looked up as we walked in, greeted my dad as they knew each other and then pushed up his glasses and peered at me and said "School uniform for the baba" and my dad nodded. In a jiffy he was unfolding his measuring tape and measuring and making copious notes in his book. I was very curious as to what he was writing and tried my best to take a peek. He just continued writing numbers and I was amazed and a little bewildered as to how he would remember, which part of the body did a particular measurement refer to. Before I knew, he had taken my measurements and it was time to go. We went back a week later and the uniform fit me perfectly. After that every year, I regularly used to go to Ganesh to stich my uniforms and some formal trousers. We would stand there and make small talk and yet there was something unchanging about him that I liked. It was like year-after-year I continued to change and he seemed to have come to a standstill. I don't go there anymore.

As I cross the road to go home, I see that he has renovated his store and the bar under the name Gtex outside has started drooping and yet Ganesh remains the same, unchanging and unyielding.