The News of a Morning
Having finished my early yoga, I come from the room and enter the hotel courtyard, and the senses, which have fed me quietly throughout the night, fill with the picture of a Goan morning: crickets still sing in the cool temperatures, while a wide variety of birds welcome the day in conversation… saying what? All that chatter can’t be for nothing: Aaaah, it’s good to stretch my wings!, or Clouds overhead, maybe it will be cooler today…? and What’s for breakfast? Cricket?… at which point several crickets quickly silence their instruments and scurry deeper into the grasses which line the stone wall.
The roosters crow the morning; and the bread vendors on their silence bicycles roll by, graceful except for the clown-honk horns attached to their handlebars, which are tooted incessantly to announce their wares, a mini-donkey mid-bray, or circus horn for a painted unicyclist. They bray on the back streets, then bray in our direction, bray loudly outside the hotel, then bray away toward the beach, their noise suffering a bread-vendor’s Doppler shift. I have never seen one of these bicycles stop for a transaction, though I suppose they must sell bread, otherwise how to continue their trade?
Across the street the herdsman lets out a series of belly-sounds, hoo…! huh! and prods cattle out of his house, an improbable number of large animals emerging from his small space. Out onto the road, completely filling it (it is advisable, when taking motorcycle rides, to leave quite early, or leave late, but miss the domesticated animal’s rush hour), then heading away from the beach toward their morning pasture. All tolled, some dozen animals emerge, and the herdsman last of all, carrying his lunch in a small tower of metal trays: “huh…! hoo!”
Not far off, and just audible below the more proximate sounds of rising day, is the slow and steady breath of the sea, its waves drawing in and in. The younger man at the restaurant walks into dining gazebo, where I am writing. Good morning, sir! Masala chai this morning? He is a bit bleary (“You people should get up according to India time! Nine am for breakfast, not 6.30!”), and his English is limited, but we have developed this choreography, where the steps are known, and explanation or answers unnecessary.
Later the chai arrives, and fresh orange juice this morning – a mixture of some variety of tangerine and valencia. To the chai I add a dash of black pepper, an ingredient they neglect, stir in a teaspoon of sugar, and allow Sunday morning to continue opening to whatever will be.