Pocketful of Sunshine

Every living molecule of my being soaked in warm delight as electric sun rays danced on the exact spot that I stood. It was a sleepy, Sunday afternoon for most. But a testosterone submerged routine quarantines few from that luxury, and I am one of the privileged few. So I allowed myself to lapse into a mental conversation of sorts, before it would be time to yield to schedule.

A pocketful of sunshine is all it needs to send you plumbing crevices that hold jumbled-up memories of winters spent in a faraway tropical country that I call home. And where my thoughts and my mind still escape to. Garden-fresh gajar-matar ki subzi, countless afternoon hours spent sitting in the garden, shelling peanuts and then crunching them between your molars, watching the sky turn a burnt yellow and then a tired crimson, clutching tightly with both hands that adrak ki chai ka cup and letting it sear your palms in the most tender manner, and so much more.

By daytime, things are refreshingly different here too. And I see things in a different light, literally speaking! For instance, the neighbour’s curtains are beige coloured not brown as I always thought them to be. Innocuous specks of rust adorn barbed-wire fences everywhere in the world. Yes, even in America.

And that butterflies fluttering their rainbow wings still excite me. I am very tempted to break into a sprint and leap at them, as those lovely, winged creatures dodge my attempt… At that moment I think nothing of dropping to the ground my fancy overcoat, and the fancy contraptions that I carry. But that instant ticks away soon. Only if I could chase butterflies!
And then I told her.

Me: Now I know why weather, especially sunshine finds so much mention in firangs’ novels…
Her: Hmm… Okay
Me: What a tepid ‘okay’. Now I won’t tell you what I wanted to say
Her: What’s wrong with an ‘okay’. Plus, it was an encouraging one
Me: Who are you kidding?
Her: You
(silence)Me: Haan… so what was I saying? About weather…