An Evening Walk in the Gardens

 The sun slipped and fell behind a mesh of trees, quietly stealing all their colours. Long legs walked past. What was it, a mind wandered. Eyes spied a yellow-wattled lapwing sauntering through the twilight. 

The path in the Garden of the Unexpected led the feet to the fountain making shy ripples in the lily pond, where reflections of a dying day lay buried deep.  A brainfever's three-note call rose in crescendo, tearing a succession of holes in the evening.

This represents birth..." The ears overheard a voice and a heart fluttered, warming up to the idea. 

Next to the pond, a patch of sunflowers wrapped in fragrance, watched the man limp across the half-hidden pathway in a zen garden. 

Are you hurt? They asked. 

No, he answered.

Then, why do you limp?

Because I was born with one leg longer than the other.

The Zen Garden represented  childhood, and the man with the limp was laughing as he gobbled up all that empty space to feed his imagination..."all this space, to make something out of nothing"...

The chimes hanging from the denuded Neem  responded to this spontaneous wave of joy, and stirred gently, tempting the breeze with the elusive sound of their clinking. The tree house ran up and down, its smoothened wood glistening under the band of bright pink straddling the sky. The dragon laughed and the fish wriggled to free itself from the wooden structure it found itself trapped in. This is adolescence... And beyond it, is the tea house. 

Go, I shall meet you there. 

?

So many questions

Orphaned

And lost 

In this world

Which claims to know

Too much

So many questions

Quashed 

in schools where

children are awarded

For answering

Not for asking...

So many questions

Looking for

Their raison-d'être

In dark alleys

Aflutter with doubts

And uncertainties. 

So many questions

We are afraid

To ask ourselves

For the answers

Might not be the ones

We are looking for

Who Needs Milk?

 The Holy Cow,  Fulfiller  of all desires, born from the ocean of milk, was fatally bitten by The Great Snake,  who has been balancing the earth on its hood from the very beginning of Time... Therefore our neighborhood with us included have once again  resorted to black tea, black coffee... And sure enough, everyone is missing out on their daily quota of lassi as well.  

"In a deadly encounter, a cow succumbs to the poisonous bite of a cobra," the headlines in the local newspaper had announced. Yet, we never imagined that the reference was to our own dear milkman's cow. It was only after three consecutive mornings had passed without hearing his motorcycle rumble to a halt, and his cheerful greetings take over, accompanied by the clatter of steel vessels in which he carted milk, did the reason for his absence and for our empty milk pail kick in.

Our last milkman as well  was coerced into stopping the delivery after his wife contracted cancer... For, she was the only one granted the privilege by Her Holiness herself to draw milk from her gorging udders. Needless to say, their business folded up and so did our daily dairy supply. 

The story does not end here. Subramanian, our own local gardener once used to double as a  milkman, and owned a fine Bhadawari cow. He generously flaunted the indigenous breed, with its long curved horns and a large hump. We often watched with awe as he bathed and massaged his prized possession lovingly...on a quarter acre plot, tender tall grass was planted to serve as fresh fodder so that she could indulge herself indefinitely. The brass bells around her neck made sweet music as she sauntered down the neighborhood, her long tail swishing rhythmically. She was a beauty for sure. So, it was hardly a surprise when  she was granted the VIP status in the inauguration ceremony of  a local magnate's new villa.  The gardener was overjoyed and viewed it as a great  personal honor to have his cow selected for such an auspicious  observance. However, the poor cow, used to the green outdoors and a complete freedom of movement, was so traumatized by the experience of being forcefully herded through the atrium into the main hall to bless the inner premises, she abruptly stopped giving milk, and consequently had to be sold to some other interested parties, who didn't care for the  milk part so much. 

I know for sure that the former Rajasthan High court judge Mahesh Chandra Sharma would have been more than happy to procure it. As a belligerent proponent of the anti-aging properties of cow's urine, the nearly 66 year old judicial leader would appear to be in dire need of such an ambrosia. Coupled with his faith in this holy beverage's uncanny  power to absolve all sins from one's previous life, the idea of owning his very own cow could indeed prove irresistible. Who needs milk?