It Happened One Afternoon

It happened during my lunch hour walk yesterday. I was ambling along the streets behind the huge field which is behind my office which is behind ...well never mind. 'Twas lovely weather. Heavenly breeze and a kindly Sun occasionally peeking through fluffy white clouds.

To digress, I confess that I like to go 'house watching'. It's a habit I might have picked up as a kid growing up in Vizag, cycling along the roads in the MVP and Lawsons's Bay area, looking at houses lining the streets, sensing their aura - whether they were loved or unloved, happy or sad, imagining the stories that the houses might have witnessed. There is an art to House Watching. Not that I have mastered it. But I know a couple of things. Especially when it comes to guessing about the people in the houses. The no-brainers are whether there are kids or old folks living in the house, depending on toys strewn in the yards or well used lawn furniture. Whether the woman of the household is a homemaker or a career woman judging from the din (or the absence of it) in the kitchen in the afternoons. Whether someone in the house has a lot of patience if the garden is full of blooming rose bushes, or very little of it if its full of crotons. Whether....well I dont remember many. Actually, they no longer seem close to Holme's deductions anymore. Although as a kid, I thought they were pretty swell . I guess I have to stop being delusional.

Fine! Okay! Si! I admit, I lost touch. But the love for House Watching hasnt diminished. So, this particular lunch hour walk, I found some ridiculous houses. The most outlandish one was a mansion that was fashioned with Tudor windows and gables. Garn! Squat in the middle of Singapore in the 21th century! It was very ugly, pretentious ugly and positively comic. Well, then again, you do what you want with your money. I found some beautiful homes too. This one particularly old house caught my eye. A cat was sleeping on the compound wall which had ivy creeping all over. Giant tree in the yard groaning in the wind. Azaleas popping from flower tubs. Many many beautiful wind chimes hung in the patio. They were dancing madly in the breeze. It was a spectacle worth hearing. The cat yawned lazily. I think it was pregnant. It was a picture of harmony and contentment. The house was weathered and well lived in. It was a happy house.

Anyways, i digress. So, I finally reached Exeter Rd, at about 15 minutes after the clocks chimed 1300hrs. Which clocks you ask? The bells of St Joseph's Institution for Juniors. So, I ran into hordes of sweaty, unruly boys, running around to meet parents or to board their buses and generally creating good natured ruckus. Right off Exeter Rd, there is a mammoth sized pedestrian overhead bridge with endless steps. I began climbing up these. The view from the bottom of the stairs was quite brilliant. Practically a Stairway to Heaven - blue blue skies, white white clouds, showers of dried yellow leaves from surrounding trees in the wind.

Then. Then I noticed a 9 year old St Joseph's boy, with a huge backpack slung over his back. He was right at the top of the stairs all set to descend. But instead of climbing down the stairs, he hopped on to the steel bannister adjoining the stairs of the over head bridge and began descending by sliding , swooping, gliding at a speed of atleast 100km/hr. I am talking about the height of about some 50/60 odd stairs. He had more elegance than the Man on the Trapeze you saw in your circus visit 23 years ago. Insouciance, a careless grin, wind in his hair, hands open in a gesture of easy confidence.

So much that I instinctively stopped mid step, watched him with increasing admiration. It was over in a blip. But I was gobsmacked by the whole beauty of it. So much that it hit me in the pit of my tummy and I found that I was holding my breathe.

When he reached the foot of the stairs, I couldnt help but exclaim, "Awesome!" That was when he noticed his audience. And believe you me, I kid you not, this charmer of a tyke winked at me with a huge grin! And jaunted off in a easy gait that foretold that if life treats this 9 year old right, he will have the world in his hands. Or at the very least, he will break a couple of hearts.

All this while, there was another boy racing down the steps, calling out to this tyke, "Jedidiah! Jedidiah!" (Yes, St Joseph's is a Catholic Inst. U can guess from the names! Not that it matters of course). This second kid he saw me watching with admiration, gave me a thumbs up sign while passing and said, "He's good, aah?" I laughed and carried on climbing the stairs.

There are moments in your life when you feel something monumental has just happened and you fumble to grasp its full meaning. This is not one of them.

Then there other moments in your life when something quite random happens and you are reminded of the joie de vivre you had as a kid or the premonition you always had as a kid of grand things to come, a sorts of auspicium meliori Aevi except not in the coming era, but in your coming days, in your very life and that "Life [still] remains a blessing, although you cannot bless", although you are all grown up.
This moment was of this kind

A bit o' sun, a gust of wind, a patch of blue skies, a twinkle in the eye and an insouciant soul are good things for the lethargic soul.