My cook asked if she could sell ten of our surplus coconuts for 30 rupees. I said okay, while holding a packet of imported pasta costing 285 rupees.
A Marwari wedding procession passed my house, the band blaring triumphal music from a film about a Mughal emperor. The bridegroom on horseback, not quite kingly.
A rare sight: a monkey loped into the garden, bearing a stolen melon. I went out, our eyes met, it leaped into a tree.
The monkey coolly picked insects from an extended leg, while all the crows in the area gathered to heckle it. I went back inside.
All became calm again. From the window I saw crows pecking at the melon, and no sight of the monkey. Order was restored.
Indian sounds are different from American ones: I heard a hissssss today from the pump; Lakshmi said it was a pusssss.
Our good new gardener has not been seen for two days. The cook says young men are too distractible: they always want to go to the movies.
It may be 104 degrees outside, but on the other hand, it's mango season. Something is taken away; something is given.
Saw old movie Deedar. Blind hero regains sight, is rejected by beloved, blinds self again. I groan. My husband says: You don't understand that kind of love.
Days of unbearable heat suddenly broken by darkness, wind, thunder... the merest dribble of rain. Then back to our regular programming.
The monkey who crossed our garden last week is back. My neighbour prowls his garden with a stick in each hand, looking up, wondering what to do.
Spicy snacks frying, attar, vehicle exhausts, stirred together and baked in tropical heat. The perfume of urban India.
A man at the party said, In a cave in Uttaranchal a stalagmite/stalagtite will meet in 200 years; then the world will end.
I suppose it's only in Indian film songs that lovers vow to meet up with each other lifetime after lifetime.
2 comments:
Beautiful, vivid flowers - they jump out of the screen. These are called "ponam poo" in Tamil, flowers that are strewn over the dead body (Ponam=cadaver) as they are carried to the crematorium. But they are lovely, despite the connotation of death and disappearance.
And the corkscrew seems to be craning it's neck, as if trying to look further around the bend of the earth. Ah, yes, what the do the unsuspecting populace know of the things that haunt them in the sky? Corkscrewed they are...
Thank you for your kind comment -- and for telling me about the 'ponam poo'. My mother told me that vincas, which also grow widely here -- with triangular petals -- were known in the US as 'graveyard flowers' ... it's hard to associate bright and cheerful flowers with death.
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