A machine, or a mouse?

These days, I find that I am more often than not agitated. No thanks to this president.

Even the soothing back-roads seem treacherous in this environment; I am worried that some pissed-off trump-voter will express his unhappiness at this dark-skinned, bearded, fellow.  Thus, I am on the boring interstate where everybody but the truck drivers seem to be imagining that it is the autobahn that they are on.

I slipped the CD in.  I was sure that one song will do the trick.  That is my favorite in the Sgt. Pepper album.  Yep, that one.  The one that will draw in anybody from the Subcontinent.

Within you, Without you started playing.  Which is when a car zoomed past.

A white Mercedes.  I looked at the plate.

"Ganesh."

Yep, a car with a personalized plate that read Ganesh.  For you white readers, ahem, that is a Hindu god.  Maybe it is also the owner's name. Or the father's or son's or husband's name.

It seemed appropriate that a Ganesh would go past when I was listening to the sitar sounds in the song.  The cosmos never fails to provide entertainment in my life!

The song ended.  I pressed the "repeat" button.  Within you, Without you, all over again.  My mind wandered.  It roamed about far and wide.  As the Sanskrit couplet that we read in high school said, there is nothing to beat the speed the sound at which the mind can go places in no time at all.

I made sure I parked in a lot that is not the usual place where I park.  I continue to do those exercises for short-term memory, even if that does not help any bit.

After a long day at work, I was driving back, mostly in silence and occasionally listening to the news on the radio.  A car zipped past.  This, too, had a personalized licence plate.  "Datta."  It could very well be another Indian-American.

The cosmos, again! ;)

ps: why the "mouse" in the title?  The word "mouse" is derived from the Sanskrit word for the critter--mooshaka.  The mouse is the Hindu god Ganesh's vehicle.