The Gravity Sand Filter

We weren't allowed on the roof of our hostel in Manipal. I was lying there, spreadeagled on the rough concrete floor in the shade of the water tank in the afternoon. Just the closeness of that water tank made it all cooler. All you could see were the tops of the gently swaying palm trees and the blue, blue South Canara sky. I was lying perfectly still, willing the hawks and kites that wheeled overhead to come close to me, listening to their occasional soporific cries.
There was some sort of workman going in and out on the periphery of my vision. He kept coming out onto the roof and climbing up to the water tank. That was the reason the terrace door was open in the first place. He climbed down the aluminium ladder from the tank. He was tiny, with a round head and grey crew cut hair that made his ears stick out. He had the typical labourer's clothes, shorts and shirt with a cloth slung over his shoulder. He disappeared into the building and went downstairs for, like, the fortieth time.
Curious, I went to the wall on the hostel side and looked down. He emerged at the bottom and went around the building to the back, where it was all muddy. He squatted and started collecting stones in a shallow metal dish. The block security guard wandered out into the open then and looked directly up at me. I ducked out of view a second too late with a curse on my lips, still picturing the old man's skinny frame hunched under the weight on his head, trudging up four flights of stairs. And he'd been doing this all afternoon.
He came out onto the roof and addressed me in Kannada, "Little sister, the watchman says you have to get off the roof."
"Okay, Pop, I'll just hide here a while longer."
"Okay, then." He asked me as he went back to work, "You study here? How much does it cost to study here?"
But I was embarrassed to tell him. Blowing up hundreds of thousands learning how to arrange cutlery while he hauled stones up four floors to fix our drinking water system. "Too much," I sighed. It was past 4:00 now, and something occurred to me. "Would you drink some tea?"
I ran down the stairs to the mess, where there were steel cups and tea on tap. Of course we weren't allowed to take a cup out of the mess. I took two, and made my barefoot way back upstairs. I handed the tea up to him and and he looked at me like he hadn't expected me to come back at all. His eyes crinkled up and he laughed an indulgent, throaty, old man's laugh just like my grandfather's. A mist of good feeling settled over me. We sat down to drink our tea, he on top of the tank. He fired up a beedi, savouring the unexpected break. He told me I was just like his daughter and that she'd been married a while ago. He told me about what he knew best, the agriculture in his home district, Shimoga. They grew peanuts and rice and coconuts.
I saw him again briefly the next day. He came back to the hostel to finish up. I smiled at him. He didn't smile back but his eyes crinkled up in recognition and he left. The terrace door was open again. Mr. Stanley, our Engineering/Maintenance teacher and butt of all jokes, was out there overseeing. "Come look at our new gravity sand filter." We were studying those that year. He smiled graciously, inviting me to climb the aluminium ladder.
I climbed and stood barefoot on the improbably cool tank in the glare of the overhead morning sun. I peered into the dark square of water rippling over the stones below. The tank outlets were opened for their routine cleaning, and one by one the cascades started to gush out of them, slowly covering the floor with light-catching water.