As, I am informed, you are enjoying an Indian Summer, today we are enjoying a South India Autumn – the air feels think with muggy heat, trapped by the looming grey thunder clouds of the monsoon that have, until now, been lurking in the almost distance & looking fit to burst under the strain of their heavy load, like the muscles of many a worker we have seen lifting sacks upon sacks of rice from cart to store, his face contorted with pain. When they finally break & the rain comes tumbling down, the cloud fresh clean water immediately contaminated filthy grey as it pounds harder and harder in an attempt to wash clean the cities broken pavements.
When we were collecting the silver wire we had ordered, the downpour held us hostage in the shop – a single room, with no sign above the door to hint at it’s purpose, painted blue, always blue, for no other reason than it is a colour that complements every other, welcoming & brightening the simplicity & frugality of the houses, stores & carts that it adorns. An open furnace around which a man or two in bare feet crouches teasing the metal, stacks of disposable terracotta pots (which will surely one day become a sort after, with the growing use of plastic instead), and a large safe is all that this thriving business requires.
Enquiring after the whether they make gold wire, the owner retrieved an ingot of 24 ct gold from the safe and offered it out to me. I held out my left hand to take it but he motioned to me to use my right. I felt very rude as of course here the left hand is only used for going to the toilet.
As we sat in the large open doorway, waiting for the gate of rain to let us leave, the gold-smelter’s grandson folded origami boats and threw them out onto the ever-expanding torrent of water between the shop front and the parking of motorcycles in the narrow road. Most sank, sodden & drowned quickly by the giant drops, one succeeded, racing down the river Gutter, navigating floating chai cups and street debris, and disappeared out of sight.
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