En Passant

In passing, I heard a baby cry, a mother croon & watched the graceful sway of her hips as she rocked it to silence. I didn’t recognize the language nor the lullaby – maybe it was Thai or Burmese, or any one of the dozen other tongues that scatter this small nation with big dreams. The baby was swathed in an old sarong, which looked clean, though bleached by the sun & constant washing. Plump cheeked, rosy from the screaming, the babe looked well cared for, well loved.

In passing, I saw 2 girls walking to school, hand-in-hand. They were maybe 9 or 10, pony tails on either side of their heads, swinging to a secret rhythm only they could hear. The elder sister walked one step ahead, on the outer rim of the road, putting herself between her younger sister & traffic. Their schoolbags trundled along behind them like shadows, bulging, pot-bellied shocks of reds and pinks and blues, perched on their rollers like fat old men on barstools. When did school bags get so full of knowledge that young shoulders no longer could bear the strain?

In passing, I saw the toothless old lady selling keropok on the pavement outside the bank. She is a familiar figure in Bangsar, packets displayed carefully on her tattered raffia mat of red, white & blue stripes: clear plastic bags of deep fried dark caramel banana chips, pale yellow tapioca chips coated with a sweet chili sauce, light-as-air prawn crackers and those devilishly addictive, spicy Indian nibblets flecked with fennel. RM10 for 3 packets, she says. She reminds me of my grandmother. I want to believe that her crow’s feet are evidence that she has laughed at least as much as she cried in her long life.

I sometimes forget to look – when I’m waiting in queue, when I’m in a traffic jam, when I’m walking past - so wrapped up in my little universe, so eager to get to my destination, bitching about the heat & humidity. I forget – that it’s the journey that counts.