Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Ah! The pleasure of groundnuts!

I was walking down the sidewalk of the road, on my way back after a tiring day at work, carrying my office bag on my shoulders. The weather was positively amazing and I could feel the gentle, cool breeze caressing me.

As I continued sauntering along, the air began to get humid, the dark nimbus clouds invaded the clear sky and I could just about see the faint glow of the sun behind them. Perhaps it was going to rain.

As I made my way through a lot of people, who were hurrying with, I thought, intentions of escaping the rain lest they should get wet, I noticed the evening traffic whizz past me on the road. Then, I could sense in the air the unmistakable aroma of fried groundnuts. This seemed to rejuvenate my spirits for I truly loved groundnuts. I kept wondering if I was just imagining things until I came across the stall from which that gentle fragrance emanated. And I was right. The vendor was selling groundnuts, indeed.

I asked him for a packet of nuts, with a pinch of salt in it, and paid him two rupees. I watched as the vendor deftly made a cone out of one of the newspaper bits he had and filled it with groundnuts. Boy, Did I feel refreshed!

I continued strolling back towards home, packet in hand, eating groundnuts one by one. There was a light drizzle and the air was filled with the faint fragrance of moist mud. Two rupees well spent, I was a happy man.