Clouds and Sky

I have always been the imaginative kind in my life. Usually the youngest of the kids are always eccentric and adapt to situations and very outspoken. I was not, when I think of childhood I was the quite type, I would spend hours alone without talking to anybody and the only friend I had with me was my imagination.  When I was lonely I imagined a jungle full of animals around me, when I needed love I would imagine my pillow as a large soft teddy and hug it. When I was happy I would sing to an entire audience of mongrels, the point I am getting to is, there was no dearth of entertainment in my 'loneliness'. However whenever I met fellow humans, I never figured out what to communicate. 

One of my favorite loneliness games was to stare the the sky and clouds. It still is, but Gurgaon is so polluted that I can never see a clear sky. But yesterday was different, its been raining for a few days and its bright and sunny at times. In the evening while I gave my designated mommy time to my son I noticed the sky was clear and there was a pleasant breeze in the air. There was nobody at the park, just us. We picked up heaps of Frangipani and scattered them around the green park. Aryan kept uttering Waa Flawwer a million times. I introduced him to black ants and explained him the concept of big and small.  

 

Once we came to the verandah to count the number of busses and trucks and tractors on the street I was in for a treat. I saw some amazing cloud formations. The next 3 hours went in a daze, kept looking at them and clicked pictures, hundreds of them, thinking the current one was better than the previous one, till was was dark outside. Never realized such simple things in life brings us so much of joy. My mind was refreshed and energized, I smiled at Ma and told her, the evening was good, I have got content for my next post. She muttered something but I was lost in my mind palace.

It started with two mini tornado like cloud over the concrete horizon and the wind blew it from the same direction.  The wind smelt of fresh green leaves, the kind of smell that you get if you mow your lawn. For me it reminded me of post monsoon days when Mr. Gardener would come in for consecutive two days and de-weed the entire garden and cut of the overgrown gross with a sickle.

I don't remember his face or if we spoke to him. I remember he would take off his kurta and wrap around his lungi tight and start chopping the overgrown grass from one corner of the garden with a million mosquitoes sitting on his back. I guess the inner compulsive person inside me was dying to slap his back and kill all of them, but I had immense self restrain. I would watch the skinny mosquitoes grow fat and obese over hours of overfeeding blood from the poor man. 

The key joy of my day would be to watch Mr. Gardener eat. Mum would give me the responsibility to help her with carrying lunch for him. His face would light up in delight at the mountain of rice and lentils, a portion of vegetables, fish curry and some yogurt on the side. I would linger around the mounds of freshly cut grass, and sneak glances to watch the man eat. 

It felt wrong, it felt as if I was encroaching on his private moment. I could imagine the amount of back breaking work he had put in for the whole day he must be crazy hungry and his expressions of satisfaction and delight digging into the food, its been almost three decades and I cannot forget it. 

I remember I would hum to myself and hop from one mound of grass to another almost tempted to kick and scatter them around till I would hear the gruff voice of the man to basically asking me to cut the crap and get back inside. I would ignore him till the word 'snake' would float in, that would be basically it.

To recall now, didn't I have anything else to do? School perhaps?  I would be back to cloud formations and imaginary drawings in the sky. 

I don't know why I never posted this, perhaps because of a lack of a better photograph. Considering I have taken time off from work, I decided to post this with a recent photograph of clouds and sky around me.