The lush life

There's a reason I've been away from the net for so long. It's not you, it's me. I am currently in Sawantwadi, spending a month here with my mum as she moves into the new house she's built. A whole month at home- wow, and bless my boss.

It's gloriously lovely, of course. I had almost forgotten how lush and fertile the Konkan is in the monsoons. Life springs up everywhere. We have two resident frogs, with two very different personalities. One is staid and well mannered and prefers to spend all his time meditating in a corner. The other is a tree frog with clearly poor navigational skills who spends all his time leaping from bedpost to wall and agitating my mum by threatening to crash into the table fan each time.

I spent a night sitting on the stoop of the house my mum has rented watching fireflies flit about in the forest next to it. It has been so long since I've done something so simple and so magical. I have seen fireflies a time or two since my adulthood, but not in their hundreds. Here, they filled my world.

It has been exactly seventeen years since I last did 'real' gardening –in the earth and not on concrete. I am enjoying scrabbling about in the soil like the pig I would quite like to be. We have planted jasmine, mogra, roses, hibiscus, cashew, jambhul, breadfruit, pepper, turmeric, and a dozen other unidentified pretties. I've been putting my soil conservation skills to some use, and exercising muscles that had totally forgotten they have a purpose. My nails are dirty, cuticles torn, arms bitten, back sunburnt. I am clearly, enjoying myself.

This comes with a price. As I type this into a document file, I have no way of knowing I'll be able to post it. I got me a internet connection, the 15-minute connection took me 5 days. On the sixth day, I learnt that our house and the rented one are both blind spots when it comes to this network. And despite my image of myself as a low-tech person, I am dependent on the internet. My blog, my work and most of all, my communication with friends and the Mian are all at a standstill..i am clearly not enjoying this bit.

Stinkin' rich and poverty stricken at the same time.