Traveller Portraits

There is a party in the air tonight. Beside me at the chai stand are seated a group of scruffly travllers. I say seated, but mostly they just can't keep still, although none of them has` fallen off their chairs just yet so I suppose the word is valid. I think that they are Spanish; I'm sure that they are crazy. Three of the boys have matted rasta hair, tied for some reason in bunches at the tops of their foreheads and at other random angles. They are barefoot in these Indian streets, full of loose long-legged energy and monkey movement and unfortunately for the eye even a little bit of butt-crack, as clothes are obviously just a social necessity for at least one of them. His trousers just hang as they do, and in the few times I've seen these boys I don't think they've changed their clothes once. They make me smile, for their unconventionality is not hurting anyone and is actually quite entertaining to watch! Usually it's enough just to watch the cows eyeing up the vegetable stalls, or each other, or laugh at the local boys on their bikes speeding down the road in such a peaceful place. All the while beautiful Indian / Western music by Prem Joshua is playing, and the market teems with twilight noise.