Flamingo Laundry

Grey goats spilling from a truck and hopping around like popping mustard seeds in oil.. A shop named Flamingo laundry, swathed in a dim blue light that makes the people walking around look like fish in an aquarium.. The low-throated purr of autorickshaws interspersed with the bells of the ice-cream seller.. The smell of Anjalai drawing the morning kolam ( the smell of water sprinkled on mud, like the onset of rain ).. The humid darkness at 3am dispelled by a swinging avocado shaped bulb.. The ferocious cyclone that brushes past my face to reach out and pluck a mango leaf from the sky and fling it to the ground.. 

My city, there's a lot to like in you.

Green Bubbles

Long long ago, a tiny bit of heaven broke off and fell on  Earth. It had lakes that spangled with sunshine , mountains that shimmered with purple leaves and the only people who added maple syrup to everything.  It now goes by the name of Canada.

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 All around me, there are dancing little cobwebs formed by sunshine that managed to pierce through the thick canopy above. I note again for the umpteenth time that the trees here are really, really tall. I look above to see green circles rising conically to the sky. I feel safe, far away from concrete troubles in the land of tall trees, humming birds and a singing sun.

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'Look!', K's grand-aunt points to the distance beyond a babbling brook. We all freeze in a moment of awe. Standing there, enclosed in a mushy swamp of bright blueberries, is a wild moose. He stands looking at us, with the doleful eyes of a curious cow. His ears and horns look so soft, as if someone gave him a pair of Christmas party horns to wear. We tread carefully away, not wanting to distract him by taking  pictures. On the way back I make a serious decision that if I ever had a pet moose I would call him Moussaka.

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- Transcribed, scribbled notes from Nova Scotia, Canada.