Ginger drafts...

As the dust settled back on the road, some of it favored the flower tops on the roadside, some on the men walking along the roadside. some of it got caught up with the wind above and regurgitated into the ponds filled with green algae on the surface so thick and rustic that the sheet of green simply undulated along with the waves underneath it, but never broke, not even sunlight could slip through the thickness, one wondered. We travelled on and on, in the red APSRTC bus through the dusty roads along the lakeside with children pelting paper rockets made of the daily newspaper at the bus. A school boy was following the trail of a bicycle wheel with a stick in hand hitting it right on the top every time it slowed down, a woman was walking heavily with mincing steps and the men in dhotis walked past her nonchalantly not pausing to admire the beauty of her balancing the weight of water pot on her head. the bus slowed down and the man with a rug on his shoulders was whistling his way down t...

So, what is culture he pondered for a while, while the truck before him was idling? Is it the ideas that are advocated by few men of intellect that drives the civilization forward? he conjectured as the man behind the steering wheel pulled the gear levers and the truck took to the roadway. If not for the wheels, the gears, throttle, the sophisticated suspension, the immaculate joints, the crank shafts with zero tolerance, all of them would merely charge the truck into the state of ‘idling’, but could never put it into motion. But is it that simple, he struggled with skepticism; wheels are just as much an integral part in the complex machinery of the truck as any other part. Isn't that so? Besides, wheels can only take the truck as far as the engine permits, and there are a whole lot of other parameters that preclude the wheels from assuming a central authority. ‘So, is the civilization too’, he blushed pleasingly as if he chanced upon a critical theory and continued with the new...

In a construction site, right next to my apartment, on a particular Sunday, work was proceeding at a slow rate owing to the constant absenteeism of some of the workers. So I slipped in through the maze of laid down steel rods across the compound through the rubble in the hallway over the stair case through the pitch dark interiors on most of the floors to the top floor. Here a guy was marking steel rods to precision lengthwise and proceeded to cut them up with a chisel held in hand by another worker, while the former began pounding on to its top with a lead hammer. for a minute, I shuddered with the thought of a portentous and revolting outcome that was not impossible given the ruthless hammering with no scope of an error; the hitting had to be right on the top of that chisel's head. Under the scorching sun these men were dutifully finishing up laying down the roof's foundation in steel for yet another floor in an apartment which was being built in a series of endless and aggr...

I fail to notice the obvious most of the times, perhaps because the situation is too sloppy to grant it my gracious attention. Last time, I went to ooty, I had been bestowed with the finest details of human bonding, so much that I relished in it, that I just had to repose my conscience and embrace tightly the rewards of comprehending the human bonding forthcoming in the way. The early morning fog was still creeping heavily through the thick forests on to the road we were on. It was a mini bus with four seats on either side on which two people could sit with foot room barely sufficient. Workers were laying the road at regular intervals along the way; it was a bumpy ride with the vehicle pushing the shock force on to its passengers thanks to the absence of shock absorbers or the futility of their presence. Whichever it was, we were all obliging the vehicular inter spatial forces with admirable conscience by slightly lifting our bodies above the seat, weighing up on the knees when we noti...