I’m here this week out at Gatchibowli. A suburb near the HITEC city of Hyderabad. It seems almost impossible to see the planning of Hyderabad, what used to be a city which I thought I understood many years ago is now even part of a new state called Telegana. The rapid expansion through Hi Tech is truly amazing but frighteningly embedded in the fabric of the older city, roads and infrastructure.
So rather than deal with the traffic to the office in the morning. I stay out in Gatchibowli, do exercises on the roof top under the watchful eyes of the vacationing arctic docs on the roof of some other building across the noisy street below.
Just then though the light turned down. I thought the jagged Island would give a colored mystery. A diffusion of grey, like a water color of a muted trumpet against a rhythm of blue, where thinner wings buzzed in the misty air with no intent but to be there
That sound led me out there, and as I approached, I saw a woman standing. There she stood, just off the shore, with her white arms waving slightly but her head cast down. I went up to her in the fading of the light.
“Can I borrow a pen ?” wondering what else to ask.
She looked at me carefully and nodded slowly, but said.
“Please, just waiting one moment”
I waiting a moment continued for quite sometime, and the tide receded till eventually only the crab holes were exposed in the mud. Waiting a moment, like in a lobby bar in a far off oriental hotel.
“How do you like the Island ?” I asked.
She looked around and then back and laughed…
“Just like an inverted martini,
kept cool by a woolen scarf and beanie”
I thought maybe she was crazy, standing out here all alone, well almost all alone, and then whatever she said came in laughter and rhymes.
Down lower goes the light, falling behind the isle, but we still stand waiting, looking for crabs or something, she doesn’t say… Or crawling things with neon eyes and skittering sideways with lots of legs and darting minds.
“So what then are you looking for ? ” I asked quietly.
“Do you really want a pen ?” She asked me back, then said.
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