Astonishment pure & simple. Mumbling to oneself, lips aflutter, pretty well unhinged. Strange, uncanny to be living others’ lives from the past and other cultures…
Hulwana coming by with a young chap in stride, nephew of that size and aspect was difficult to credit right off. Thin, darkly pretty, upright, always in her marvellous Arab gear—even when like this morning, Hul declared she was not in her “fancy clothes.”
Catchup. Hul had been unsighted the last number of weeks. The sweetheart was OK; brothers fine; dad not so well, losing his appetite.
When from the side the young, fresh-faced, body-building nephew in plain red tee that set-off his colouration, shoots out a low hand at table-top level.
Unexpected interruption; hardly recognisable in the first instance.
An offering. Indeed.
Extended low and flat like a chapatti on a plate. For a reason.
When the lad bent almost double to reach the hand he had been given with his forehead, astonishment, fright & delight all bundled in utter confusion.
A definite touch was achieved, with slight nod at the end of the bow.
Gee. Ah, me... Ya.
Unmet previously, Hul confirmed, as the lad hailed from Malacca, 3-4 hours out, even by car.
Her nephew. Smiling apologetically for limited English.
One would need to travel back at least sixty years for something roughly comparable in old Montenegro. (The lad here, Hulwana's nephew, early-20s.)
Online Piero di Cosimo pictures last night, showing grassy knolls with livestock & birds of the air, carried some hint of the same range of human feeling and respect.
Omnipresence of birds & animals in the old artwork across the globe—Mughal India & Egypt before the most recent study—set one thinking on the temper of the mind over the ages, in the earlier living.
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