Judgmental opinions

I went to Shimoga the day before yesterday. On a jeep. Office work. Got to drive all round the district. Went to Sagar, from there to Ulvi, and Shiralkoppa. A small malgudi-isk town. Thirty km from the town is a village - Chikmaghadi. Thirty km of kutcha road with as many potholes as the moon. Through lush green fields and distant hillocks, breathing pure oxygen. Cattle on the road. Villagers stopping their work in the fields watching us pass. Chikmaghadi has around fifty mud houses cluttered together - why do villages have houses cluttered together when they have such vast expanses of space around them? Met the village Patel, who has the only concrete house in the village and a tractor in the garage. Am offered tea thick with milk and sugar in tiny steel tumblers encased in a wide mouthed short steel tumbler in typical karnataka style. Make small talk, they nodding to my hindi understanding nothing, and me nodding to their kannada understanding nothing. Local Forest Guard and Forester...

I had a visitor the day before yesterday. He stayed the night in the rest house close by. In the morning he is all excited. He is excited because he heard the frogs croaking all night! He lives in the city and apart from the traffic and the occassional dog fights, he has heard nothing else. In fact, I assure him, what you heard are three different species of frogs croaking. I sleep to that cacophony every night in the rains and curse the frogs for invading my sleep. But then when I reflected on what the visitor said, I thanked my stars for making me so lucky. The frogs assure that I can sleep without mosquito nets and mosquito repellants. I don't worry of the electricity shut downs. I can get a good nights sleep without electricty on summer nights or rainy nights. The cicadas bother me in the summer; but now I will be thankful for that too. And I am thankful for the clean air, I am thankful for the tiny honey bees that pester me round my ears in the winter, I am thankful for the bl...

The other day I killed a pig. A tiny little black and white domestic pig. It ran across the road and hit the front wheel of my bike and made my bike and me eat dust. When I opened my eyes, I saw the pig lying down beside me. Damages included the pig, a broken headlamp cover, bent fender of bike, torn jeans at the knee, torn shirt at the elbow, a few more scratches on the bike, rider and his ego. Later in the evening when I passed the same road, I thought I caught a whiff of sorpotel cooking.

I did't know posting a blog was so difficult. Words fail me when I sit to write. whew...