All the random thoughts

"Oh it is not much. About 5 packets of biscuits a day" I always nod my head and move away while doing some rough financial math.  Never daring to ask a follow up question though. Assuming  each pack costs about 10 rupees, that's fifty rupees a day. Fifteen hundred a month. I know these guys don't get paid more than about twelve thousand a month. So that's a good 10% of a very small monthly income.  He works as a Watchman at a medium sized complex. His duty falls sometimes at night and sometimes during the day. A portly young man of around 30 years of age, maybe. Wears a large Tilak on his forehead and patka around his head depending on the season and his duty timings. He feeds a good number of stray street dogs every morning or night. As if like a ritual. The dogs know the time when he will be ready to feed them. Mostly just before he packs up from his duty and is homebound on an old bicycle. The dogs come to him or just laze around the place where they know he wi...

At the Monda market today. There was a couple standing 3 feet away from me as part of the police enforced social distancing. They did not look particularly well to do given they came on an old Bajaj Chetak. Vendors of some other item in the market, I understood. They had to wait until I finished my shopping of groceries. "Aiyo !! The Goat is eating away the rotis" the wife yelled all of a sudden. Everyone around turned to look at their Chetak scooter. A Goat was dragging away a whole bunch of rotis that they probably got into the market to setup a short term fast food stall. Their daily earning is going for a toss for sure. I felt sorry for the Goat as the man, I was sure, was going to beat the hell out of it. The man looked at the Goat for not more than ten seconds. "Theek hai. Bhooka hoga bechara. Khaane de", he says to his wife. They both waited until the Goat probably ate about 20 rotis before walking away. There were hardly anymore rotis left in the bag. "...

"I have nothing to gain" The woman was probably in her late fifties. She had kind eyes and a smile that can be best described as sad. She was reclining against one of the poles of a ragtag makeshift tent. A variety of pieces of cloth were laid on the ground with different vegetables arranged or sorted in no particular order. The place was literally the middle of nowhere, at least from my perspective. Somewhere along the way as I drove from one small town to another, places that were well away from Hyderabad to be considered remote though not too far from it. The winter sun was kind yet scorching and it was still early in the noon. As I drove through multiple tiny hamlets, I stopped at this lady's makeshift store hoping to buy some good quality vegetables that are farm fresh. I had to ask her if she got them from Hyderabad to sell because then they would be from some freezer and can no way be called fresh. "I will tell you which ones are fresh and which ones are not. ...