An Outing

I drove to Sangitha to buy vadai for tea. I parked in a side street, along which three empty bullock carts were waiting for custom. The bullocks were tethered separately from the carts, on which the drivers sat. At the head of this row of carts were two men who were attending to the bullocks' feet - one brown bullock was lying on the ground, four feet drawn together with rope. The jute bag of tools lay beside it, along with part of an inner tube.

Inside, waiting for my order to be prepared, I asked for a cup of coffee. It came in a small steel tumbler inside a katori, coffee already slopped over from the tumbler. It was intensely sweet. The boy who brought it slipped the bill under a round steel dish containing a little sweetened aniseed. I put a ten rupee note under the dish. A young man sat down opposite me, seeing that I was about to leave. I lifted up the dish to give the boy the money directly, but the breeze from the overhead fan blew it, so that it fluttered into the young man's lap. I said, "Oh, sorry," and he smiled and caught the bill and handed it to me. The waiter had begun to come toward me, so I handed it on to him with the same motion. It was all one long, flowing arc.

On the way back I passed an old man riding a motorcycle, wearing a blue plaid lungi, dingy white shirt, and a tall red fez with a black tassel.

I saw so many things.