quencher

after spending a long day in a dinghy on the pashur river under the blazing hot sun about 6 years ago, we returned to the launch exhausted, dehydrated and very near coallpsing. as we climbed up the rail ladder back to the launch, there was the cook - all smiles and slightly bent at the waist - offering us what can only be described as manna.
in his hands he held a tin platter heaped with freezing cold slices of watermelon - all juicy, sweating in the heat and ruby red. not only did we wolve them down but we were tempted to smear the slices all over our parched bodies. they were succor, water, life itself.
i don't normally eat watermelon. and i have never had them since.

secret river

years ago one hot summer day i walked miles under a relentless sun. at the end of this walk was a river - a personal pilgrimage. i had been there before once and felt an instant kinship. so, i was retracing my footsteps to rediscover that earlier joy of belonging.
the rest of my team where inside the forest of mangroves already - shrieking like howler monkeys as they imagined themselves to be on some tv movie adventure. i was glad to slink quietly away. i had an appointment to keep.
sweat running in rivulets down my face, i reached the edge of this rolling, parched meadow where tigers killed grass-cutters at regular intervals. but i was not worried. all cats - myself included - are shy by nature.
through the thin strip of low underbrush, spattered with a few overgrown mangroves, unforgiving hental and droopy nipa palms, i could see my muddy river. gurgling a soft hello. i walked down the banks - mixture of mud and small rocks - and waded in. standing in the middle of that rushing stream of warm, honey-golden water, i breathed in its familiar musty smell. the sun on my darkened skin, the glittering spray as the water hit the rocks on the banks, the echoing intermittent, birdsong, the rustle of leaves, the embracing solitude... miles away from anywhere, i had arrived.