Someday I will write a poem for you and I will not
mention the air or the night;
a poem with no reference to names of flowers,
with no jasmines or magnolias.

Someday I will write you a poem without birds or
fountains, a poem that eludes the sea
and does not look to the stars.

Someday I will write you a poem that will just
caress your skin
and change your glance to words.

Without comparisons, without metaphors, some
day, I will write a poem that smells like you,
a poem with the rhythm of your pulse, with the
crushing intensity of your embrace.

Someday I will write a poem for you, the song of
my happiness.

– Dario Jaramillo Agudelo (from Love Poems, 1986)

I should have carried my camera to the dining room and taken pictures, but I was too jetlagged to remember that early in the morning.

After breakfast, we sauntered out and Mom wanted to visit St. Mary’s Basilica there before we went and did anything else. We asked the caretaker how to get there. No one around the guest-house knew where it was or how to get there. So I pointed to the next thing on my list, the fruit and vegetable market and the caretaker remembered that yes, there was a church near the market, so we decided to go there. We piled into two rickshaws with loud two-stroke propane engines (yes, Bangalore has propane/lpg public transit and filling stations) and went to the market.

Serendipitously, the church in question next to the fruit and vegetable market was St. Mary’s Basilica.

We went into the church and I was fascinated by the differences and similarities between churches in Goa and Bangalore. The confessionals are similar, no private confessions here…

Plus, it’s just possible that everyone else in the village can give a better account of your sins than you can

The interesting bit was the appropriately labelled slot, next to the cash donation box:

Then we wandered around the market, where the prices of some of the imported fruit shocked me (dragon-fruit: $10 each, kiwi: $4/dozen). Obviously, someone is buying them at those prices (typically in India, you can bargain down to about 60-80% of the offered price, even in stores).

We still had some time before lunch, so we decided to go to Ulsoor lake and have a cup of tea there. Unfortunately, we were the only tourists there at noon, so the guard would not let us in, telling us to come back at 4:00pm. We stopped to buy some more water and then went to lunch.

The Mawalli Tiffin Room was on my sister’s list, so we went there for lunch. The MTR does not have a typical restaurant feel. It was more like a large family gathering, where the other relatives were distant enough that you didn’t know them at all. They took our money, and held us all in a waiting room until they had enough people to fill all the tables in the restaurant. Then they let us in and sat us down, passing out plates and cutlery.

Then the servers came by, carrying giant buckets of food and served everyone.

They kept feeding us, and feeding us – there were about 10 or 12 dishes. I did not imagine I would finish it all, but it was delicious (I’m salivating, thinking about it now) and I did.

Dessert was ice-cream and a paan. I waited to eat the paan until I was outside where I could spit without danger of hitting anyone. Lal Bagh was about 30 meters (100′) down the road from MTR, so we went there to walk off our gastronomical excess.

Unfortunately, unlike the book, we did not find any sheep there. But there were cows around.

We sat down for a bit before wandering in the garden.

We then wandered back to the guest-house, where my parents decided to stay in while the rest of us went on to the Planetarium. After the very interesting show (which was interrupted by the ushers rushing around getting people to turn off their smart phones (which are really, really bright)), we came out and saw a sign across the road for the Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain, with a show starting at 7:30pm. We called our parents to let them know we would be late for dinner, and my Dad was tired of eating South Indian food and wanted some wholesome Goan fish-curry-rice, so we said we would bring back something suitable after the show.

kthxbye!

Well, sad to say, my friend was right.
Over the last week, I noticed a tiny little hummingbird dart in and feed while hovering, looking all around between feedings. “Hmm, that’s strange – maybe there’s a cat getting into the yard”, I thought.

Yesterday, I saw another hummingbird – a slightly larger one – sitting on the tree, just looking around. He was gorgeous, with a scarlet throat and a dark green back.

I was wondering what was up with that when I saw the littler hummingbird fly in towards the feeder, and the one in the tree dive-bombed it, chattering loudly while chasing it away. Vicious little bugger is right.

That said, there’s a scrub jay that’s started showing up:

Such pretty blue feathers!