# Notebook

Keeping vigil

SNS | March 16, 2015 9:20 am

A colleague writes: I have known a neighbour for decades who is notorious for his laziness. Sipping bed tea, he lolls in bed for half and hour. After he has emerged from bed, he goes through the newspapers has a leisurely breakfast and then sits down to work. Being a sculptor, he has been spared of the rigours of a nine to five job.

He works till late afternoon and after lunch and siesta and then sets out for his evening adda. Not once have I seen him doing any household work. But lo and behold! I almost froze in my tracks at his sight rubbing sleep from his eyes as he stood looking all around him from his doorstep. Curious to know what has made him shake off his old habits, I walked up to him.

Before I have said anything, he enlightened me. “I am keeping vigil.” he said. For the past several weeks, he has found several empty bottles of liquor of various shapes and sizes left at his door. It appeared the drinker with a penchant for morning walk littered the sculptor&’s doorstep when the lane was deserted in the early hours of the day. So far the depositor of bottles have not been traced. But the littering has stopped indicating that the vigil has not been fruitless. But it remains to be seen how long the watch continues.