Deepavali has always begun with vadas fingerprinted with my amma’s hands. The crests of the prints burn more so they are nicely contrasted. They also fill your stomach for the day, I have had a bad relationship with food for a long time, but these past few weeks they have shot up. I like to eat, eat without limit until I feel full and sleepy, which is when I feel good. Pigeons sleep/hide/stay on the ledges as the city breathes in the smoke of deepavali. Somewhere on the wetlands at the Poondi Neer Thekkam (reservoir). I’m riding in the front of a 4 wheeled mini truck, with 2 other passengers and a kind driver. My face is grimy from over 300 kms of driving on the bike, and 30 seconds of an accident somewhere 40 minutes before this picture was taken. All the cool wind of the just-rained highway could not make me feel calm as I begin to unravel, in my mind, the implications of the disabled second passenger on the truck, Karmegam. The most calming evening of the week, was when this young visitor chose to sleep in my lap. Sometimes he moved my arms to coop inside and sleep, sometimes his hind legs would slip and fall for me to coop him back up. Caring like this is something I’ve not done in a long time. The days appear to fly away. I settled into a routine that made me skip my weekly note last week. There was a lot happening, there were many kinds of work happening in the collectives and inbetween all this, I hear something in a passing conversation where we were deciding where to eat dinner: I hear, said as a joke about me, but something I’ve not stopped thinking about… anyways he [me, adhavan] doesn’t have the time for all that [relationships, love, socialising]
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