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Drinking from an old man's pot

A usual day, yet an unusual one, a day I would like to live for years. There are few things that bring me eternal joy.

I was with Sameer, and I thank him for everything. It was him who persuaded me to go to Pashupati, and I thank him for everything I gained and reflected.

We parked my bike, bought some sweets and walked all the way to the top of a nearby hillock. I have visited Pashupati hundred a times and yet had never been to this part. We were already on the top and I saw, for the first time, baby-monkeys playing. I wish I was one of them, I would make so much out of that.

We neared a small and old hut laid in a temple's shape, without any doors and windows, very away from the nearby city life. The bricks were old enough, but the old guy inside there maintained it so very well. It has been his home for months. He is little bald with large mustache and beard. He said he lost everything to alcohol.
When I asked him to have some sweet, he asked me to put little on his hands. His hands were not that clean, and probably no one would like to have such hands touch their food. He kept on asking me to put in his hands. I really wanted him to touch my food and taste what then it would feel like. I got him take his share with his own hands.
We kept on talking while Sameer was having his cigarette. The old man seemed very restless. He seemed very alone, like the hut. The hut seemed perfectly located, something like a hideaway paradise, amongst dense trees (where Kathmandu doesn't seem to have trees), on the edge of the hill below which flows the holiest of our rivers - Bagmati. The opposite hillock challenging for a rock climber, baby-monkeys again playing a little further away. I could get the sweet smell of the place, a typical garbage fragrance.

When the old man came out from his hut with hot liquid in a half piece plastic water bottle caped on the other side, Sameer asked if that was his tea. It looked black, and he made that out of water, brown sugar and little bit of Baidya's medicine. He had a loose stomach, and hadn't recovered. I took opportunity to explain him in preparing rehydration solution. He said he didn't have sugar, and I wanted to see if brown sugar would work or not. I dipped my finger to taste the tea, but couldn't feel it. Then I poured a little on my hand and sipped. It was ok.

Later, I realized I had drunk from the old man's pot. I felt so very lucky to feel his tea.

Still he was so restless. He isn't calm from within. He said one has to get what is written in one's KARMA. Maybe it is true.

He was asking for few bucks, and I said I didn't have much. Later I told him clearly that even if I had I wouldn't give him anything. I was rather happy to help him in preparation of the rehydration solution, but I won't give him a penny. He has to make that his own way; like I made my way to his tea, like I find joy in being close to such people and nature.

This all brought me immense satisfaction. I even asked for his blessing before leaving. I felt I was blessed, away from the city to have a little sip of unusual tea from the usual pot of the old man.

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