On 11/ 11/ 11

This is a quick record of today because I understand this day will not occur in another 100 years or so. {It'll be quite a bummer if it does, though. "What?! We weren't special?" My race will whisper from whatever astral planes we are clogging up over the next century.}

The day started off badly. Woke up in a bad mood and a toothache. My left cheek has a slight swelling which, I think, looks kind of endearing. It looks like I have bitten off a lollipop head and am savoring it. There's pain though. But things started looking up after a friend's call. She called me over tomorrow for a Kerala lunch. The prospect of food, the memory of food, the notion of food, food - they are so integral to my sense of...no, not well-being...to my sense of self. It is perhaps a slightly tragic thing to say of oneself but it cheers me up so.

Later, I had a light but very tasty lunch of really well-cooked rice, daal, and some beans coated and fried in rice flour and coconut.

The highlight, though, was my evening walk. I stepped out of the house around 5:15 to meet my friend at the promenade and the world looked like a love song! That evening sunlight was so gentle and sweet...it would make your heart ache. The heart doesn't always feel forlorn in the dead of the night. Sometimes, it starts pouting just before sunset too.

After a lazy stroll, we sat and chatted against a vivid sky. Is it my imagination or is the world becoming more colorful? Earlier, the world seemed to be, maybe regular water-colors. But now, it seems to have a thick velvety and felt-type finish. One feels like touching everything!

My way back home was really superb. I took the old route back, one that I haven't visited for weeks now. A lone firefly gave an amber wink and a large icy full moon gleamed in the sky. Then a friend called me for langar. This was my first trip to a gurudwara in Vashi. My last two trips have been for my friends' weddings and they were exquisite. I find weddings in gurudwaras to be very peaceful, very nourishing. One can imagine a promise of togetherness getting blessed and cultivated here.

After langar, this friend and I walked back home and had a cup of coffee at the neighborhood CCD. It is a quiet, slow place. It's like one of those red and white glitz and glow dhabas you could find alongside an Intergalactic highway. Somewhere else, life might be whizzing past. Here, though, the nerves yawn and say, "Why bother?"

All in all, 11/11/11 was like any other day. And like any other day, it was lovely.

Comments

sup said…
ooh, exquisite :)

'intergalactic highway' together with 'whizzing' brings back mr. douglas noel adams and makes for some more sighs.. :) for a bit at least, that ccd sounded just like that cafe at the end of the universe ;)
Mukta Raut said…
:-) oh, that was a great book! :-))