Tangoing the Tamarind

I wish I could say this with a picture; my emotions were smeared on my hands as I teared open the sweet sour tamarind chutney packet so how could I even manage a picture with those sticky hands!

I pressed the packet to get the tamarind out on my hands from where I could lick it and enjoy each sweet-sour slurp. I forgot the world around me as I stood on my balcony on a warm and sweaty afternoon licking tamarinds, piece by piece, licking each finger, as if there was no tomorrow.

I remembered how this used to be a precious buy from our childhood pocket money during festivals and I tried in vain to place myself now at the corner of the roads and lanes of those years.

I pressed the packet hard, not a bit of the lovely tamarind chutney should go waste, just nothing should go waste! I forgot that I had tasks to do, calls to make, checks to tick while I stood by the balcony licking the tamarinds.

Those ten minutes may be were my moments of meditation, or my giving a damn to the world; those ten minutes were just mine and my tamarinds’ and time just stood still for those ten minutes.