Poranki, my small hometown a few kilometers from the center of Vijayawada, is a place where your morning walk will take you through banyan groves, tall college buildings, and cow-dung-filled roads. I travel there as much as I can, but when I cannot, I just have to close my eyes to dream about the good times I had there. The narrow streets have homes lined up with competing rangolis and children chasing cricket balls, vendors calling out their fresh produce through automated audio messages via loudspeakers.
You meet triplets, run into a newborn puppy and worry about its fate. But then you remember your neighbors feed fresh yogurt rice and yummy tea time biscuits to street dogs and you feel happy once again. You will buy cakes, shoes, and clothes, and go to the tailor’s to get them stitched. You stop kids on the streets to become their paparazzi. You visit temples early in the day before sunrise and even after sunset.
It’s a place where, in the afternoon, you will go to buy organic multani mitti at Mana Graamam, but when the shopkeeper frets about problems with his supply chain, you nod in fake empathy and leave the place quickly because, for all you preach, you don’t have any solutions to real-world problems.
In the evenings, you come across uncles who are drowning their sorrows in the Rasna Bar or the Bratt Bar, where cocktails cost five times what they do in the Rasna Bar. And your night cap will come in the form of the ultimate jugaad*, the birthright of every Indian, when you see an electric car charging port that can give any true-blooded American a heart attack.
* Jugaad: there’s no problem that doesn’t have a solution mindset LOL
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The Flower Girl
Love This Wall Decor LOL
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