India - Day 24

The windows are rolled down—my leg hangs out the window. Paul Simon plays, and my left hand dances along in the wind as I watch India. What a pretty combination—the joy of Simon’s Americana and the alien, everyday moments of Bombay as she rolls by. Formless, beautiful India. I know what I know!

A street urchin appears at my window with a small collection of roses. She’s adorable. There’s a big smile on her dusty face. She has roses, and for them, she’d like money—she says it with her eyes. We both hand her paper notes at the same time. She accepts the double payment with a charming grin. In her lottery, she nearly forgets to complete the deal and moves on before I can get my end. I reach toward her and pull a single rose from the small bouquet she presents, then place it against the chest of the girl sitting behind the steering wheel. We smile at each other.

When I look back at my life, I feel most alive with one arm draped around a pretty girl and the other gripping a half-full cup of a half-cold cappuccino. Aimlessly, we move through a bustling city—whichever one you please—and the day is young. The sun is warm and attentive. We have no motives and no expectations from others, except that they play with us. There is nothing to do except live. So we skip up the mighty marble steps of some museum and consume the creations of those who chose to live before us.

Soon, the sun has had his fill of watching over us. Side by side, we sit—my leg on her lap. A cat slinks past. We sit in a clubhouse. What is it with pretty girls and their clubhouse memberships? "I had all my birthdays here," she tells me. She lived in the nice part of town. Not far from us, a wedding procession plays out the birth of a new union. She reads the book I brought from Bangalore. I write what I remember about her, occasionally looking up at her to jog my memory.