December comes
It's the last month of the year and it promises to be crazy and frenetic. It almost seems like this month doesn't have any patience with remembrance. Memories, this month seems to think, are easily dispensed with. I don't quite like it when I don't get enough time to unwind and reflect on the year gone by. However, this crazy hurtling of minutes and seconds into the next day is most encouraging. Maybe December of 2011 knows something about 2012. Maybe that's why it's rushing towards 2012 so quickly. Everything else can wait.
I wish I could say something momentous and clever now. Considering I am writing this post at 3:45 a.m. after having worked like a dog throughout the day, I need some release. After coming to Mira Road, I have mainly stayed at home or gone here or there for a bit of work. So, this is actually my space, right now, to vent. Or rant. Or say something. I can't think of anything other than the night two days ago.
We were out of groceries and Eva and I decided to step out to get some. But when two freelancers step out of their home without their laptops, even if it is to dash off and buy bread, an excursion begins. The whiff of winter in the air, the dull, yellow streetlights, colorful salwaar kameezes hung at the Ladies tailors - they are a party to anyone working at home for a long spell. So we buy our bread and milk and eggs. "Do we need anything else?", she asks me. I shrug. She shrugs too. We don't want to head back so we decide to buy vegetables.
This part is my favorite. We go into a lane where a hawker sells a large mound of tomatoes. Hundreds of squelch-worthy, fresh, ripe, red tomatoes. Tomatoes that ripened in the best sun and got ruddy and lush and rich. Tomatoes with pulchritude and pinchability. We were so tempted but we already had a few at home. So we just gave them our love and passed on.
A little ahead, we saw onions. We decided to get some. It was quite an ordinary task until it became the stuff dream sequences in movies are made of. We looked up. We saw a moon that though milky-white, reminded me of Salman Rushdie's 'Qara Koz' in Enchantress of Florence, meaning 'Black Eyes'. This moon looked mysterious and transparent. You could look at her and feel her smile. You could imagine her with delicate, pink fingertips. You could imagine her walking through a large, verdant Mughal garden with hibiscus and rose bushes and rolling an onion playfully towards you.
11 months have passed. Every day of these 11 months something has happened. And I remember buying onions in moonlight.
I wish I could say something momentous and clever now. Considering I am writing this post at 3:45 a.m. after having worked like a dog throughout the day, I need some release. After coming to Mira Road, I have mainly stayed at home or gone here or there for a bit of work. So, this is actually my space, right now, to vent. Or rant. Or say something. I can't think of anything other than the night two days ago.
We were out of groceries and Eva and I decided to step out to get some. But when two freelancers step out of their home without their laptops, even if it is to dash off and buy bread, an excursion begins. The whiff of winter in the air, the dull, yellow streetlights, colorful salwaar kameezes hung at the Ladies tailors - they are a party to anyone working at home for a long spell. So we buy our bread and milk and eggs. "Do we need anything else?", she asks me. I shrug. She shrugs too. We don't want to head back so we decide to buy vegetables.
This part is my favorite. We go into a lane where a hawker sells a large mound of tomatoes. Hundreds of squelch-worthy, fresh, ripe, red tomatoes. Tomatoes that ripened in the best sun and got ruddy and lush and rich. Tomatoes with pulchritude and pinchability. We were so tempted but we already had a few at home. So we just gave them our love and passed on.
A little ahead, we saw onions. We decided to get some. It was quite an ordinary task until it became the stuff dream sequences in movies are made of. We looked up. We saw a moon that though milky-white, reminded me of Salman Rushdie's 'Qara Koz' in Enchantress of Florence, meaning 'Black Eyes'. This moon looked mysterious and transparent. You could look at her and feel her smile. You could imagine her with delicate, pink fingertips. You could imagine her walking through a large, verdant Mughal garden with hibiscus and rose bushes and rolling an onion playfully towards you.
11 months have passed. Every day of these 11 months something has happened. And I remember buying onions in moonlight.
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