Jai Shri Krishna/Good Morning

It's 6:38 am. Another power cut. While the blades of the fan slow down, coming to a halt, the room quickly fills with the hot stillness that makes sleeping impossible. I feel nauseous from the heat. I lay on my back sweating in our bed. Loaded down autorickshaws and high school boys on motorcycles fly passed my window outside. The roosters from the slum next door are making their morning known. The vegetable cart man is trudging along, beginning his morning rounds.

As I brush my teeth with my boiled water, the man next door ferociously hawks up his loogies rousing my nausea. I can feel him struggle with the force of his throat to gather the clinging mucus with repeated "hhawkkk.hawwwkkkkk" swishing of spit, then finally I hear "SPLAT" on the pavement below. Squatting under the faucet, I wash the sweat off my body from the hot night before. I slip my clothes on over my wet skin and tiptoe down the marble laid staircase to have my first morning cup of chai. My loogie hawking specialist starts up again for round two.

Goldy passes me on his way to God's room to give his morning prayers dressed in an undershirt and a towel around his waste. A cat sneaks in through a vent in the kitchen to steal some buttermilk. I keep her secret. I'm sitting on the couch feeling peaceful and listening to the noises from the streets, the clanking of dishes from the kitchen, the ringing of the bell from God's room, the sound of running water from the outside, the everlasting hawks, until my laughter stirs me from my gentle trance, and I am absolutely delighted to be here with myself embracing this solitude, sipping on my chai, and feeling true wholeness waltzing about inside my chest cavity.