A tabby cat called Sammy

As I stand along the riverway, waiting for none, you came along grazing just like another cow. Were you different? I don’t know. Are you going to be nice to me? I will find that out as I levitate through the gullies of time. You promised nothing and that was the best part as I have nothing to offer either.... Just another broken soul lugging around my luggage in the hope of finding someone to help me along the way... 

Life has been kind... I have never had to do it alone. Commies came along all the way echoing all the words that I needed to hear and then you came along. You weren’t a breath of fresh air but refreshing you are. Maybe because I feel like punching you every time you say something obnoxious, which is pretty often. Your comebacks are silly sometimes but you never retire!

But, yet there is a part of you uncorrupted. No, I don’t see it too often and neither am I going to be the one who will be the one to access it but maybe we will help each other as we traverse on parallel paths in different universes. 

Will it change the both of us? I don’t expect anything and I am not going to ask for it either. I’ll take what I get and juggle with it till I get tired. And if I don’t, it will be wonderful. Maybe I’ll find different things to toss and turn into the air to keep it interesting. 

Life is funny, maybe that’s why I keep laughing whenever we throw our darts at each other. C’est la vie.

You and I

I am here and you are there. You sit there with your cards and I with headphones plugged into my ear. I remain oblivious of everyone around except the lemon tree playing into my head. You are there, with your friends playing Rummy for the umpteenth number of time Yet I have not seen you win. And I want you to. The girl beside you and the guy across you keep winning. But don’t seem to share their luck or love for the game to beat them at it.

Earlier, all i just saw were your hands, because your fingers were doing the work. I was content to let you remain hidden behind the curtain. You were content with teasing my imagination and I was glad to let it run wild.

You keep wiggling your toes and looking around in the hope of catching my eye. But you dart away, the moment you think I might look you straight in the eye. And now you are playing with your smartphone, all the while staring at my mauve feet. Back again you are with your feet up, lounging in the shadow of your friend and waiting for me to smile.

But this is all we will ever be!! Strangers on the train because we both don’t have the nerve to strike a conversation. So while I slip into my world of imaginary friends, you will go on and play more card games.

Tashi Delek

There are days when you want to wake up with a nicer and brighter dream than seeing your wallet torn off, running scared and paranoid from some danger unconceivable to the mind. Then as you open your eyes, light decides to play a trick on your senses and you see a swordsman on the electric pole in front of your house covered in mists. It jolts you and then your eyes snap open while your senses want it shut for the want of a better dream... To wake up sweet natured is all I ask on a day I am going to see Dalai Lama... Oh not personally of course, I have to be a bigger person, if not in size, at least in stature. 

But, I suppose a few deep breaths and basic yoga should do the trick... and it did. Maybe it’s the omnipresent brook crash-landing on the rocks that did the trick. Water, not the trickling tap water, of the ocean or a rippling stream leads me to “inner peace. 

As with all things Indian, I got a camera, met my Israeli friends and landed at the DL’s temple in time, actually much earlier, to click some pictures of the world’s favourite monk. Did I get them? A couple of good ones! I need to buy my own camera otherwise what pictures will I see when I grow old? 

It’s a world in here, monks from everywhere. The whole place sounds like the tower of Babylon, but not as noisy. People are genuinely nice to each other. Maybe I’m saying this because I was offered butter tea, bread and a cushion- all from strangers. Somehow, this is an India alien to me. Maybe it’s not exactly India. A place where crabs don’t exist... I need this magic outside of the hills...