Yesterday evening as I was waiting outside a shop selling dots for one’s forehead —

—Manjula used to give them as gifts as we travelled through England—

A woman asked where she was.

I pointed to, inside the shop and after a perplexed reaction, realised she wasn’t asking about the little girl (Kaveri) or Manjula, for that matter, but the dog (Lucie).

The girl was stocking up for the return to school.

I’m well known in my area and in Mysore generally but usually because of my appendage.

I am nothing, not even a number.

…

I once walked into a hotel (restaurant) right on the other side of the city, for the waiter to ask me where’s the dog. He also lived in Siddarthanagar.

So I’m well known for who I’m with …

As of this morning, as I realise, I stick out like a sore thumb as generally there’s rarely other firangis (foreigners) here. There’s a new appendage.

A tree

As I was tossing and turning in the midst of my AWOL, nightly sleep I realised there was only this morning for me to be able to decorate the tree for Christmas.

Kaveri will be going back to school.

Kaveri is here for less than 24 hours and we’ve decorated it together for the past three years since we met. I’ll not see her again until a few days after Christmas Day when we’ll belatedly celebrate Christmas.

A bit too late to do the tree

Plus our usual totem is now too big and heavy for the hall aka lounge.

What to do?

Easy

Get up before the girls and after walking as man and dog, I go out again, to the nearest ‘nursery’. It’s run by guys from UP on the roadside. I haggle with them from the Firangi-Gora (white) — tax – price, to something resembling the price a local would pay. About half.

Then as I’m trudging home— convincing myself that I’m exercising my muscle diminishing 60+ years arms —- with very regular rests. I realised I’m another spectacle of the foreigner ‘variety’ who is entertaining the locals, especially the men at the chai shop and the women sweeping the streets. They’re interested as no one can possibly work out why the rich foreigner is carrying a tree and not using an auto rickshaw.

A wonderful young man, rescues me from the ordeal of the last stretch, stops for me to balance precariously on the back of his bike and gets me home.

I’ve become the foreigner, not only with dog and girl but now the tree

It suits me

…

Ok it doesn’t look very heavy but the weight is in the pot.

It’s now decorated.

But now the cats eyeing it up, for a potential attack thankfully for the moment she seems satisfied with the empty decoration boxes.