My neighbors are kind. They have befriended monkeys in the neighborhood. Sometimes, we all look like families caring for each other.
The monkey usually sits on the pipeline, connecting tap pipeline to the main supply, to not let people come near tap, unless it is my neighbor. In return, the neighbor lets the monkey use half bucket of water. Their children are kind too. Recently, the kids have started dropping out of school to give the parents another pair of hands to carry pails of bucket.
I have been trying to visit Daryaganj this week to buy water colours for the kids. On a day when I am thinking whether water colours should even be in my shopping list, a memory of ocean fills up the lane and walks towards me in the form of a Class 11 child, asking a room, full of quiet children,
“In which state is Bay of Bengal?”
He was making jokes on water to break the ice between us.
How are you and what’s up have become the most ridiculously creative questions these days! Every time I gaze up, the sky seems to trip over the next high-rise. But all it does is burst into more flames. There is no conversation which does not start with how hot it is outside. Or preempts that when the office crowd steps away from AC offices, the first crease on their brow will be because of the Heat Outbreak. Recently, a bus commuter offered another sweaty, thirsty, commuter an almost empty water bottle.
I am not reading any signs here. I am telling you about a story which is painted by water colours and has no idea how it was painted. Somebody must have broken the ice to fill this painting because this picture couldn’t have been made without water.
I hope whoever broke the ice, made the audience laugh so much that they collected laughing tears & helped the children buy water colours.