Cafe – Innerdialects

Her eyes sparkle then dim as he walks out and leaves her to pay their bill. I didn’t dare take a pic while they were there.

Next to us a couple (late 30s?)….her eager smile full of pink lipstick; his laughter, …careless? The Cafe reeks of a few worlds the names of which I try find, they’re there in my sensitivities.

Another couple exchange photographs in their mobiles, then he stares long at his phone; she beams at him, waiting, then looks at me. Her paper thin cheeks crease in a smile that reveals one broken tooth, was I imagining that? What do I know except that we are pieces of a Life too complex to understand just yet and yet, aren’t we each fantastically full of pieces with or without God.

I ask our eldest daughrer Vi, why Cafes draw me so hard and she grins back, “Oh its stories…ma?” Hmm,

this is real, raw; they unmask certain some unseen things?

One solitary diner talks into laptop, two humans across the long low roofed cafe huddle in peppered ponytails and bright colors, a couple with resting faces burrow into gaudy salads:

people with words, or none, via a miracle of timing: we have coffee together celebrating a victory, a sadness, Hope…

Outside, before our flyover:

👇🏼

images mutate, then sink like rats in the sewer. Old crinkled velvet chair seat: it will go to dust. There will be new furniture for someone…

a flower seller insists we buy her 2Roses. Kitsy our second daughter returns one rose to the girl who flares with the indignity of that. The dignity of Humility, oh. She receives her Rs 50/-, not thinking she could’ve priced it a bit more; didn’t dare offer her another note, her jaw defies pity?! This is new in my country of a billion contrasts and every contrast falling in me like a psalm;

like pieces of God brewing our attention to detail: perhaps we have misunderstood a few events between here and heaven? Perhaps what we call pain and suffering are truly Bridges into God raw real, screaming for Peace with man….

You see It* in naked mouths, in burdened markets, in death cells & cathedrals; we all await the same thing.

I saw It last week in a wee apartment & momma with sick child,

saw It crying in the Street yesterday outside a Cafe: a man sat in Crossword puzzles; his face sunk. A couple in phones, not touching shoulders like Love sits; she refused cake, he shrugged, got a green mango ice cream, the silence only stopped now and then when the happy eyed waiter grinned. He grinned as he walked between polka-dotted giant cups perched in high wooden open cabinets and acrylic fern;

we diced snakes & ladders at this Cafe called Narcos. Hmm. No drugs, just us in chilled sweaters and hungry for chat as mothers and daughters can be when needing to know we are loved – no conditions, no time to comb hair. There was that need, to taste a satisfaction…..

a diamond waiting to be sharved (just made that word) ;

It….is like Water waiting to Fall, like a Niagara e’en. We say, What. That….! But we turn into terrorists at Traffic messes, we become brooding hens over interruptions, we snarl at headlines, and run like headless chicken when ignored. Oh and this – we absolutely evangelize on the meanness of God when there’s an earth disaster, then we build Cathedrals of mistrust….

It was there yesterday at Happa Stationers‘- guy in dull red cap o’er few flat locks, he strung them over his shoulder, his face dead-fire, as we traded notes for exam accessories for my Kitsy,

she with eyes like stars over an unknown future. Some people are Bearers of Good. They go like a Lighthouse searching the dark:

Clover grass ‘neath step at Stationers.
Pic Courtesy : Kitsy Ruth.

****

we retrace steps back home, the sun is warm in our cold toes. Yea an Indian cold. Cold enough to shiver my pigeon;

am scared to read the papers – they lie face down in a jute bag under chair turned to the trees outside, as if asking these skies for Noah’s rainbow;

today’s unopened Times sun bathes next to Rosie, with her 50+ tiny spiky leaves and rose pouting…..

like us Humans rearing for relief.

We’ve schooled our Self to hiss like serpents in gardens of Grace. We rap our own knuckles if we fall prey to God’s Love. We skid, stop stare like rabbits caught in headlights, stammering- afraid to give in to Humanity’s best-masked need:

(Terrified of what we do not know, what we do know holds us safe among ‘relatables‘; eaters of edible bad news);

I saw It Staring at me via a Cartwoman selling tomatoes. No Cross tattoo in her throat like some of us Church goers host, no prayer beads except rich busy fingers at brinjal and coriander leaf, like she were a branch off Him who made her veggies! As if there was nothing to fear. Yeah her purpose to be the Bearer of Grace.

Yeah I can talk of Love and Valentine trophies all day but if I didn’t receive this Thing, I wouldn’t know how to give it. ‘IT’ …a 5 lettered word one sees best on a Hill far away.

Soon we’ll be doing Lenten fasts and Anthems to woo It back in our lanes, aye Grace– lurking in corners like a lost Lover, a jealous one, aching to forgive, bless, heal, restore, love:

aching that we believe *Its reach, Its depth, Its width, Its unfathomable Power to raise the Human Spirit from the Store Rooms of hell.

Yea, yes- the most under-rated, least accessed, the Greatest Human need there is- Grace:

Love always follows. No matter the odds.

Grace : unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification. b : a virtue coming from God. c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance.http://www.merriam-webster.com › grace