A friend tells me that his mother can vocalize the sounds of an Indian railway station at sunrise. We’re sitting in a neglected garden when he tells me this. We are drinking champagne. It is spring but not warm yet. We pour champagne into tea cups and we converse.
My friend who is British and who grew up in India is in love with words, but exquisitely in love with them, the way certain wild animals have been known to covet human toys.
"Mother dined out for years on the Indian railway station trick," he says.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 