Here are my observations of a typical morning routine in my neighborhood.As I start my daily walk each morning the following sights and sounds greet me….

I see the paper boy driving a scooter..he slows down but doesn’t stop and deftly throws our newspaper from the road into our house over the gate. He repeats the action in a couple of other houses in our lane and disappears into the next lane.

The guy who supplies milk packets too comes around the same time in a scooter with a huge bag full of milk packets. Other ‘Milkmen’ too deliver their packets in a few houses in our lane and soon disappear.

I see the maids sweeping the area in front of the main Gates of each house …the sounds of the brooms go swish swish …. Soon this sound is followed by the sound of water being sprinkled in the area which is now clean… followed by the maid displaying her muggu/kolam skills…

I usually walk up and down in our lane and sometimes go around the block …I need to be careful and do my best to ignore the street dogs that are all over the place… They start barking as soon as they sense another dog with it’s owner who is taking it for a morning walk… The owner tries hard to pull their dog away from the street dog…a few dog owners hold a stick and shoo away these street dogs…at times two dog owners cross each other and they have a tough time pulling their dogs away…either they are barking at each other and ready to fight or they like each other and show their affection ….an interesting sight :)…

The street dogs usually don’t bark at walkers who are regular…the moment they sense a new person they go bersek…poor walkers are amused, scared and confused…thankfully these street dogs are harmless and don’t bark at me :)..

A young boy gets dropped in his scooter by his friend in front of a house …he is holding a big orange plastic container which is connected to a hose and ends with a handle…looks like a pesticide sprayer….he starts spraying water all over a car that is parked and starts cleaning the car…appears to be the latest innovation in cleaning cars…I also come across another young boy cleaning other cars parked in an empty plot using a bucket full of water which is the traditional way most people clean their cars …one cannot afford to clean using a watering pipe as water is too precious to be wasted especially in Summer.

I see a lot of walkers in all shapes and sizes with different gaits and different pace of walking and in different attires.

A lot of bird calls …. Crows , squirrels ,doves ,sparrows ,bulbuls , sunbirds and cuckoo’s …

I see a few neighbors going to the store with a bag and returning with milk packets…

A few men women children are patiently plucking flowers from the plants that are on either side of the road … these flowers are for their daily puja.

I notice the varieties of plants and trees inside people’s homes and outside their homes too … Some in full bloom …I notice how the trees on either side of the road are cut so as not to touch the live electric wires …some bend at 60 degree to the road…some are cut in the shape of a V and the wires pass in between… there are lots of trees in our colony ….they are struggling to grow with all the restrictions due to obstruction from houses and Electric poles and live wires ..

Here are some of the beautiful flowering trees and fruit trees in our neighborhood at this time of the year.

My 30 minute’s walk comes to an end while all these scenes unfold one after the other each day…This is a typical morning in most urban areas in India.Time to get back home and prepare to go to work.

Have a nice day !!