Fashion (continued)

It's funny how people make assumptions about what they see. I have a towel that I bought in South India when the one I brought got left in the hotel. It is not terry cloth, but works great as a travel towel to pull out of your bag at opportune moments. It's checked cotton with tassels. People who see me carrying it think I'm going to pray, another of my basic needs.
When I check out at Kohls twice or three times a year, I can't figure out how people spend enough money to make a frequent shopper card worthwhile. What's the story with the lady dressed up in a suit who comes to collect food at the free pantry? Aren't people who come for free food supposed to wear dirty sweats?
It just goes to show, you can't tell a person's story unless you ask.

Peepal Tree

Japanese Strawberry is the street name for the dogwood (Kousa Dogwood) that's dropping its fall fruit in my neighborhood. The enticingly bright berries look as though people at some place in history may have thought they were a great treat to eat. Now they just make a mess on the sidewalk. Even the squirrels are not interested. They are much more enamored of the huge quantity of acorns in the tree next door. Under that oak tree is not a safe place to wait for your bus this time of year.
The long-stemmed "strawberries" remind me of the Peepal fruits. Featuring in a lot of mythology, the huge Peepal trees are also central to village life in Nepal. The hugest ones often grow at strategic spots along major trading and travel routes--which came first, I wonder, the tree or the road? Often there is a strategic tea shop right across the trail. Called chautara, the raised stone and mud mortar platform built around the trunk is just the right height for traders or shoppers, or relatives carrying a patient to the hospital, to rest their dokus on, bamboo woven baskets used for transporting things in the Himalayas.
They're not just good for resting travelers. The best thing about Peepal is they're great for climbing. I spent many contemplative hours as a child and teenager hidden in the cool, leafy branches. You can also make a whistle out of a Peepal leaf, an art that I never mastered no matter how many friends showed me how easy it is. It was really a boys' craft; maybe they showed me the wrong way on purpose!
Ghosts are known to hang out under Peepal tree trunks and among the hanging roots of their cousins the Banyan trees. That never stopped me -- we Christian kids glibly believed we weren't susceptible to Hindu ghosts. Now, looking back, I know all of us humans (dead AND alive) are a lot more connected than I thought then.
A few squashy berries took me there.