r u n a w a y m a n g o: The Rooster Is No More

It's 6:30am in the morning and Yinon and I are walking home after picking up some extra milk packets at our corner vendor. Yinon woke up very early today and I decided to take him out of the house before he woke everyone else up.

We see a man approaching on a bicycle who happens to be a guard of a construction site right next to our house. He is riding his bike holding a rooster by its feet. The poor bird is dangling upside down and banging its head to the bicycle frame. The man recognizes us and makes a quick facial grimace while pointing at his rooster. Oh no, they are heading to the butcher. The rooster wasn't exactly our pet, but we did get used to his presence as he sang his morning cock-a-doodle-dos inside the guard's shed, and spent his days tied to a tree. At least Maya is not here to witness the scene, she would have been devastated.

As we stroll along, we hear sweet devotional music originating from some temple nearby. Further ahead, at the other end of the street, we see two little boys squatting and splashing in the puddles. We can't really hear them, but two of them seem to be having a great time. They also live in a shed next to a construction site, and their shelter which is no bigger than a camping tent is the only perk their father, a guard at the construction site, gets. It sure is the best time to play in the street. It's cool and quiet, there is absolutely no traffic other than sleepy cows and dogs.

Here is Blackie, one of our neighborhood dogs. Maya told me it's ok to pet Blackie, as she has been "adopted" by the kids living in the street. Blackie lives under the bush across from Mallavika's, one of Maya's friends, house. The way I found out was one morning I followed a strange howling sound originating from that bush and I discovered Blackie snoring loudly. Yesterday Maya told me that Blackie was a mommy. Yinon and I are checking under the bush, and sure enough, we find three black puppies snoozing away piled up on top of each other. The puppies are quite large, they are definitely not newborns. I wonder where Blackie has been hiding them until now.

"You know where our house is, Mama" asks Yinon. "Do you know where it is?" I ask him back. "We go over the puddle, and that's our house!" he tells me confidently. I feel like we are characters from Dora the Explorer's world - over the puddle, passed the sleeping dogs, and that's where we find your house.

I take the freshness of a cool morning in. Everything is quiet, yet a lot of people are awake, doing their morning rituals in complete silence and peace. Women are washing their doorsteps with water and applying fresh kolam designs. Men are wiping off dust of their motorcycles. As we approach our house we are greeted by a man who seems to never sleep. He is a guard at the Maruthu Rukmani school. The guard acknowledges our presence with a quiet nod of his head and a peacuful smile. All is well, we are ready for our day.