It is now high summer and even the mornings are becoming difficult. Although there is often a decent cool breeze that blows in when the kitchen windows are unbolted and open, on the whole the flat stays hot and the air stuffy. Without a fan on overhead you quickly break into a sweat. Fortunately the water in the bathroom is cool in the morning, a luxury that is gone by 11:00 o’clock, but soon after drying yourself sweat is breaking out on your forehead again. I wore my blue kurtha today and that helped. The khadi is thicker than my western style shirts, but more air is allowed to circulate around the body and that adds to the feeling of comfort. Yesterday I had my hair cut short; a no.2 on the back and sides and a no.3 on top. It makes a big difference.
I had cold pasta and pesto for lunch today, the pesto from the stash Dani brought back from home. I ate it with my fingers from a tupperware box while sat at my desk.
I left work at 6.45, stopping to buy a clay bowl to serve as a bird bath on the small balcony. I’m hoping to tempt the wood pigeons and minor birds closer. When I had reached Tulsi Row I saw two grey monkeys sat on a water tank behind one of the bungalows on the right side of the road. The nearest, and larger, of the two glanced at me, its bright eyes darting here and there. But it showed no other interest in me, not even when I clicked my tongue to get its attention. Once I had walked past it bounded down to the road and across it, leaped onto a car roof with a metallic bang and sat on a low wall next to another monkey that I hadn’t noticed until then. I have seen these grey furred monkeys on several occasions since we have been in Ahmedabad. Last week I came out of ICICI bank to find two perched on the hand rail of the access ramp leading to the door. The way they squatted on the bar was exactly how a human would. Their small faces were black and their eyes darted left and right as they took in the honking traffic on the road in front of them. Like the monkeys on Tulsi Row, they showed no interest or fear for me, though I was no more than a metre and a half away. They weren’t aggressive either. I could see that around the side of the bank was the rest of the troop; half a dozen adults of varying sizes and one baby perched on an air conditioning unit. As I stood there and watched, the two on the railings were joined, in leaps and graceful bounds, by four more, until there was a line of grey mammals perched in front of the bank, their long tails trailing down almost to the ground. I have never wished I had my camera on me as much as then. I stopped to admire them for about three or four minutes, until the bank’s security guard came out and started waving his shotgun in the general direction of the animals. As this space included me I decided to move out of range and went to find an auto.
I had cold pasta and pesto for lunch today, the pesto from the stash Dani brought back from home. I ate it with my fingers from a tupperware box while sat at my desk.
I left work at 6.45, stopping to buy a clay bowl to serve as a bird bath on the small balcony. I’m hoping to tempt the wood pigeons and minor birds closer. When I had reached Tulsi Row I saw two grey monkeys sat on a water tank behind one of the bungalows on the right side of the road. The nearest, and larger, of the two glanced at me, its bright eyes darting here and there. But it showed no other interest in me, not even when I clicked my tongue to get its attention. Once I had walked past it bounded down to the road and across it, leaped onto a car roof with a metallic bang and sat on a low wall next to another monkey that I hadn’t noticed until then. I have seen these grey furred monkeys on several occasions since we have been in Ahmedabad. Last week I came out of ICICI bank to find two perched on the hand rail of the access ramp leading to the door. The way they squatted on the bar was exactly how a human would. Their small faces were black and their eyes darted left and right as they took in the honking traffic on the road in front of them. Like the monkeys on Tulsi Row, they showed no interest or fear for me, though I was no more than a metre and a half away. They weren’t aggressive either. I could see that around the side of the bank was the rest of the troop; half a dozen adults of varying sizes and one baby perched on an air conditioning unit. As I stood there and watched, the two on the railings were joined, in leaps and graceful bounds, by four more, until there was a line of grey mammals perched in front of the bank, their long tails trailing down almost to the ground. I have never wished I had my camera on me as much as then. I stopped to admire them for about three or four minutes, until the bank’s security guard came out and started waving his shotgun in the general direction of the animals. As this space included me I decided to move out of range and went to find an auto.
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