Idyllic Thoughts

Two days ago, I was watching a Chinese film 'Shower.' It's a story of an old man and his mentally challenged son running a bathhouse. The old man's elder son who had migrated to city many years ago in search of fortune arrives one day. The misunderstandings between father-son, the love of elder brother towards his sibling, the younger one'e clear sense of right and wrong are a delight to watch. The old man narrates his wife's story to his children — a story of villages in China suffering for want of water. With very less water found for even drinking, the families in villages never take bath. However, it is their custom that a bride should take bath on the night before her wedding. The scene where the bride's father and little brother go door-to-door seeking water is heart-rending. They carry two casks on a mule, give one large cup of rice in exchange for equivalent amount of water. After going to so many houses, they manage to fill up the casks. It is sh

Mornings and nights in Mysore are just wonderful. With hot and nauseating middays, it is a relief to come out at night and relish the cool breeze which seems to have a tiff with the sun as it refuses to meet us when he is present. The breeze peeps out to check if its archrival sun has disappeared, and slowly flows out. Early morning walk is quite enjoyable with no sign of commercial activity except for the long-drawn, oft-slurred cry of the woman who carries leafy veg in a basket, newspaper boys who would bring gold in Olympics discus-throw, men who walk wobbling on the road after a boozy night inside a ditch, daily wage labourers who arrive in city from various sub-urban villages wait for contractors squatting on roadsides... Though all these were a common sight to me every morning at 7.30, today it was quite different, delightful and clean. After a night of rain god's fury at its best, I was waiting to come out of the house and enjoy the bus ride to office. Fallen trees and scat