“Walk the talk” or “walk the walk” that is the quintessential  question Chalk and Cheese are dealing with these days.
Cheese loves  “walk the talk” and my business like Chalk prefers “walk the walk” , in absolute silence ! Long evening walks have become a regular routine for Chalk and Cheese in recent times. I love to talk while I walk, so much so that at times I feel I only go for the walk so that I can talk. To clear my own head, I ask the questions and I answer my own questions. I make philosophical points over simple matters and I admire everything  around me, from the tiny flowers on the grass to the hills and river banks . Yes, I chatter, I chatter ceaselessly and the vantage point being that the partner can not run away from me, and I get to pretend that he is listening ! In reality, I am in conversation with myself.

In such a scenario what does Chalk do ? After being the subject of this “walk the talk” evenings, Chalk has come out with a new strategy. I have told you before that Chalk is the smarter partner ; so he has now beaten me to my own game. He has very smartly Chalked the walk ! To put it simply, he has come out with new routes, torturous routes  (aah…the melting feet of delicate Cheese), for our evening walks. And guess what, he has succeeded in pushing Cheese into a silent zone. I walk beside him in a zombied mode, my mind racing but my feet aching, my throat parching, and the rest of the body groaning for attention. Well, he has silenced me during the walks but he cannot stop me from spreading the word here with my fellow readers!

With these well researched, longer routes and difficult terrain plans,  Chalk has started enjoying the evening walks twice as much. Like writing on the classroom black-board Chalk tells me stories of his various adventures. I am his only disciple on these lonely roads. He tells me of his Indian Military Academy days, when as a young cadet he and his course mates had to do the Golden Ring walk in the hills of Dehradun. These young men would be left in the jungles with certain coordinates  and some refreshments to find their way back , walking all through the night for more than ten hours to reach the reporting base at dawn. I hear in amazement and admiration. This most unassuming persona of my Chalk has so many layers to unfold. He is senior to me in age yet more energetic and more enthusiastic, an army man to the core. Cheese has stopped her non-stop chatter during her evening walks, it is more out of exhaustion than anything else. Cheese is learning the art of listening, her silence is rewarding her with sack full of stories.

At times we get lost navigating new routes, well as lost as one can get in residential sidewalks with Google maps on our phone. The son calls up once in a while to track us. Chalk tells him not to worry for his mother is with the ace navigator. What he says in jest is not very far from the truth. When he navigates I drive and when I chose to navigate he takes the steering,  together we have journeyed quite a bit uphill and now from the plateau of life we are enjoying the view around.

In the coming week Chalk and Cheese will be traveling  towards the east coast, we will be going to see our son’s  university city and attend his graduation programme. Next week I will come back to you my readers with the story of another walk.The walk our children will take , the proud recipients of degrees in their chosen field of interest.There will be many parents sitting in the hall with me and there will be so many of them sitting at home and seeing their children through videos and photographs. I may not know you all in person , but at some level we have a common thread , our children. I will write for the children and their parents. I will tell you every tiny detail of what I will see, through your eyes and mine, it will be my own way to “walk the talk”.