

Life goes on. The show goes on…the actors come on stage to play their part. Some stay on, some leave, some change. The lights dim and then brighten up again. That’s the journey… unstoppable, undaunted.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Even the two were sitting away from each other under two colourful canopies
Last night, I got up suddenly. I could hear someone/something chittering with a dark malevolence. Was it a bat, hanging upside down from a tree? Or were a couple of nocturnal creatures, maybe owls, having a midnight conference? Maybe a couple of lizards were having a fight on the ceiling of my very own small room? Was the room really full of monsters, or was I hallucinating?
But the morning had a different story to tell. It was only 5.30 AM, I peeped through the window, there were no monsters around. The night still had to yank away its dark blanket. The stars were still twinkling in the sky. After a lot of dilly-dallying, I decided to put on my jogging shoes and stepped out.
The air was crisp and fragrant with the scent of flowers from the neighbourhood. I had noticed that of late, the neighbours had been buying a lot of potted plants and planters. Yes, humanity needed the rejuvenating, reinvigorating fragrance of fresh flowers. The lockdown had almost made people forget the crisp fragrance of fresh flowers. They craved for that long-forgotten fragrance of an untethered existence, I guessed.
The gentle contours of the still visible moon slowly merged with the sky, as a pinkish glow was visible in the east, where the rising sun was trying to make its presence felt. Soon there was radiance all around as the sunrays softly touched the trees, the flowers, the leaves, and even the squirrels’ whiskers. The sun-spangled squirrels went into a tizzy of delight, chattering away.
The birds patted themselves on the back, breaking into a resounding chorus deluded into the belief that they were responsible for the birth of a new day.
Nature was in a celebratory mood, flaunting its rich variegated pageant. As I walked on, I looked towards a flat in the vicinity from the window of which a child was peeping, flailing his arms, his mother trying to soothe him. He too wanted to go out into the fresh, open air, but it was not Baby’s Day Out – at least not yet. He yelled a little, then fell silent, or maybe I could hear him no longer as I had walked away from his window.
I looked around as a bright butterfly almost collided with a sprightly sparrow in mid-air, but a collision was averted, as both flew away in different directions. The butterfly perched on a flower and the sparrow descended onto a branch of a neem tree. In the solid tangle of wildflowers, two squirrels played a game of hide and seek, while I watched riveted.
On my way to the park, for the past three years, I had always seen two girls and their mother, huddled together on the side of an intersection selling flowers, marigold garlands, and bird fodder. It was almost after more than one year that I went in that direction today, hoping to see the threesome, but I was disappointed.
There were only two of them, the mother was not around. Even the two were sitting away from each other under two colourful canopies, their faces heavily masked and turned in different directions.
Unable to rein in my curiosity, I walked up to them and waved. They waved too. Before I could ask them the question waiting to burst forth through my masked lips, they said through their masked mouths: “Ma passed away in April.” A croaky ‘Oh’ was all that I could manage.
Morning Meanderings is a musings column by Santosh Bakaya
I remembered the happy, robust lady, always busy in stringing flowers and doing brisk business selling marigold flowers and garlands, while the two girls sold bird fodder. People loved talking to her. I felt as if someone had stabbed me in the heart.
“But, madam the show has to go on.” One of the girls said, handing two packets of bird fodder to two men. I was happy the show was going on.
The park was just a little distance away, I bought some bird fodder and headed towards the Park. The pigeons must be waiting, I thought.
As I tried to cross over to the other side, two egrets descended on to the back of a cow, which stood right in the middle of the road in bovine introspection.
The egrets perched themselves onto the cow and looked around as the partially masked humanity walked on. When I looked back again, I was amused at the sight that met my eyes. One egret was angrily trying to push the other down the back of the cow, the other refused to be pushed down and kept pecking the foe on the head. Another show was on.
Maybe on my way back, I would find who the winner was.
Click here to read all episodes of Morning Meanderings Season 2
Don’t Forget to Revisit Morning Meanderings Season 1
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