It was a green lamp-post in the middle of the street. 

The birds sat under it in a zen manner. A dog sniffed at its base, wagging its tale perhaps to the dying smell of food. The beggars showed off their earnings to each other, a cheap cigarette cradled in their chapped lips.

All their silhouettes danced as the night grew darker and the lights came on. It looked like a puppet show, except the puppets were dark outlines of real people with feelings and lives. 

There was nothing noteworthy about the lamp-post or the people it sheltered, even if for a short period of time. But still it caught my attention and held it for a while, until I passed it by and it became just another thing on the street. 

They sit against the spit streaked wall; scrawny and bug eyed. When people pass, they raise their hands, asking for money. They shake their steel containers, up and down, making a racket with loose change.

The shoe-shine boy sits cross legged next to them. He plays a little tune with his instruments. The dull thud of the wooden brush hitting the rusted can of polish plays out a popular film song. The men stop by and raise one leg on to his pedestal. His cloth runs across their pseudo expensive shoes, back and forth. In the end, they watch their grim faces in their gleaming shoes and hand him five rupees. He touches the money to his forehead and drops it a nook in the pedestal.

The barber tops the pecking order. He sits on a chair waiting for an unshaven man. He taps his feet against the warm ground. He observes his fingers, trimming the nails idly with the scissor in his hands. The old man who comes for a shave also gets an enthusiastic neck massage. The barber pummels and pats the man’s neck with a clapping noise. The old man falls asleep somewhere along the way.

At night, they wrap up their things and thoughts in boxes and containers. The sounds of their trade seep through their things, running along the cracks of the sidewalk; they lie still only to pick up their song-and-dance the next day.