The Mannequin In the Window

by Parth Pandya

There is a large glass window
in front of the shop
that is now dwarfed by a huge
shiny mall that has come up next to it.
The establishment of “K.K. Tailors” was once
a shiny diamond among aging ones,
when its doors first flung open.

Krishna Kumar sewed his initials
into those “Safari suits” he specialized in −
sewing for those middle men
who trudged to the corridors of power,
where other men who wore kurtas
ruled as if by royal decree.

When the shop was opened in Connaught Place,
Krishna Kumar had installed a mannequin
in the shop window (though he didn’t need one),
and a picture of Indira Gandhi behind his desk −
the only feminine presence in a shop
which advertised itself as “Men’s tailors”.

The mannequin went from wearing
safaris to bushshirts to cotton shirts
to polyester creations,
keeping up agelessly with the styles
that the patrons sought K.K. out for.

The shop window started tainting
as the years passed.
The shop that was once new
had peeling plaster and power cuts
and a moldy flavour that travelled
back with the few who still bothered
to get their clothes stitched.

Bit by bit, the window’s blots grew
despite K.K.’s loving attempts
to clear the fog away.
And it was one day that resembled every other
that K.K. looked at his mannequin
and said, “We have faded”
and shut the shutters on his thirty-year dream.

Now he lives in a cramped and clean
flat in Lajpat Nagar,
with a rusty trunk in the corner of his room
that he keeps locked at all times,
lest his grandson steal away.

It holds within it
a cut of Safari cloth, a picture of Indira Gandhi
and the torso of a mannequin
hunched at the shoulders
bent by years of bearing dreams
and falling short in the end.

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