Walking on a HILL

Charles H Spurgeon's famous quote, "Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self"

There are promises, kept for the heck of it, kept well and not kept. Here I am talking of promises not kept.

If you have heard Baz Luhrmann's lyrics in "Sunscreen", please try remember the line that talks about the "Real Troubles in life", which will be those that blindside you on the noon of some uneventful day...

1. Okay, it was almost 7 pm as i stepped out for the customary evening walk, crossing the traffic signal by probably 7:20. I think I can vividly remember thinking about Debbie who used to tell me that a woman is safest when she is back home before dark, and the most developed nation in the world was no exception to this fact according to her. By 7:30 I was on the causeway, but this time the new faces disturbed me, for no other reason but because they were new. Among these unfamiliar faces, i spotted Dorris. Okay, Dorris and i met almost every day, shared howdy's and sallied forth with our individual routines. I can't claim we knew each other, we did not...! But this evening was different. I felt relieved on having spotted her and we walked up and down together. She told me it was not safe to be out with out a car at this hour and insisted that she'd drop me home. I instantly agreed. Now we started talking about her family. She had 4 kids, a husband and 2 dogs. Originally from Thailand, she had come to USA with her husband in the 80's (this made me think that she was pretty MUCH older than I was). It was an interesting story. Her husband was in Thailand on business and was staying in the hotel where Dorris worked. Somehow, they fell for each other and one day he asked her if she would like to come to USA with him, obviously she blushed at the proposal (though she omitted saying this, but I could make out..:)) but later agreed when he proposed her for marriage as well. Since then she has been there with her husband and kids. And then she talked a little about her daughter of which I remember nothing. We then discussed Thai Cuisine, tapering on to Indian curries and vegetables, and it was here that I made a promise. Probably, i successfully made this impression on her that Indian Cuisine is much more than curry and spices...."I will cook beans and carrots the Indian way and get it for you tomorrow" I promised as i got down from the car. "Look forward" she said enthusiastically.

Such a simple promise, never thought I wouldn't be able to keep this one. Sometimes i think what would have Dorris thought of my sudden flight to the oblivion in so far as our little evening walk was concerned. Probably she has seen much more life than i had so as to not wonder...

2. I was waiting at the library. We were to meet for the first time today. Chris told me she would come by 9 am or so after her Pilate classes. And so I waited. At some minutes past nine she walked in, brisk, slight and cheerful. "Oh ! Good Morning, Chris talked to me about you, How are you doing this morning", she said "Perfect, How about you..." With this she opened the beautiful library, tiny and filled with books related to religions, mainly Christianity (now i got the obsession when another woman at mass asked me what is the Hindu Belief and I was speechless, till the time i told her that we believe in One God, seemed even politically correct, though my first thought was "Oh....I never thought about this"). 

"I made some banana bread and got some for you , thought you'd like it" she said as she opened her cabin and unpacked her stuff. Were we meeting for the first time, was my first thought and then I was extremely thankful. I do not remember how many times I said "thank you" but clearly I overdid it, not so much for the bread as for the gesture. Later, we talked about her family and her daughter and her dietitian who had unveiled the secret of beautiful skin to her, it was "Water, plain, not carbonated, unsweetened and thus boring Water" and she kept chewing some cabbage leaves for lunch ( she was about 70-75 years old). About this time, after having understood my duties at the library, where I was supposed to serve every Tuesday, I looked up all the shelves and saw "Great Religions of the World" published by the National Geographic. Seemed interesting. I took the book and the banana bread, promised to return this book on the next Tuesday. I reached the apartment, just in time as it was now stormy weather outside. How I sampled the Banana bread with coffee and liked it too. One thing i am happy about is that i called Barbara and told her how nice the bread tasted, thanks once again. But the promise for the "very expensive" book could not be kept. Again, as with Dorris, I wonder if Barbara was beyond wonderment to understand that one moment was enough to change life, anyone's, and may be mine had changed.

 Many promises and most of them made to myself have not been kept. But the two above are particularly painful for may be I never will get a chance to even meet these people, worse, may be they wont even remember my promise. For i wanted to ceremoniously thank Tim, Kelly's husband, who really thought well, I wanted to abuse the British lawyer whom I do not wish to name here for being such a mercenary, thank the African American couple (who were probably engaged in recycling waste from dry cleaners) who were kind enough to drop me to my place on my first day in the southern storm, meet Mr. Manish Soni and thank him for the selfless "service" he had so gracefully rendered for a noble cause, meet Abal and tell him that probably some dreams are best left unfulfilled, for we do not have the guts they charge, meet Nasreen, the Pakistani lady who minted money....I just wanted to see the living face of consumerism, and lastly to collect those Cherokee trousers in the apartment opposite to Lakshmi di's, for I know not what fate met them.....such are the mysteries of life, and may be , gentle reader, you will curse me for having read this for it may mean nothing to you, but I had to write this one....For Grace...!

Forgive me as the names mentioned in the post are most unrelated to you, but even in your life these characters will appear bearing different names....

So, let me think of my next post now....


Good Night...!

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