Musings On The Move -I

Between two small towns in Central India exist a few moments of a beautiful life

Unemployment is a sweet occupation if you can neglect your hunger. Without doubt it is so, as I discovered one fine afternoon, traveling to a nearby town.

Almost instantly I shift into present tense when I remember it-------

I ride astride on a creature one of my fellows from the creed of engineers created; they call it “the motorized wheels of history”. Historic, primarily on account of its vintage condition that could provide the vehicle, a prime spot in the museum of mismanagement.

The burden of population explosion was soon having its effect on me as I sat twisted at the edge of my seat in the jeep, pushed and shoved by a twenty eight year old father of five kids, who incidentally happened to be accompanied by his troop and his pregnant (once again) wife. So much to say about our family planning schemes!

Gears shift and my tour of reality begins. Its election time, as it always is in some or the other part of the country for some or the other reason. Streetside political party offices with all their banners signboards & flags seem like organized brothels with aimless youth loitering around them like pimps of democracy. Small marketplaces smell of saline sweat and cheap alcohol. I feel heady, even nauseated, watching the sight of the closeby primary health care center which seems to be below even the most primary of the places, a sort of hybrid between a garbage dump and a crematorium.

Moving on, legs wade on many a bicycle like duck pedals, legs of all shapes and sizes these (now don’t get any ideas!). Alongside, the roads are bordered by dust, coal &plastic, much like the saree borders of roadside lady labourers, all torn & fading. The trees, they go by. painted red & white, as though target practice for accident-prone vehicles.

There were temples in front of company gates (“ forgive me lord, for I don’t know why I am working in this forsaken place; bless me with the hope that I survive another day in this precarious hell-hole ”); uniformed school kids pleasantly galloping away, ignorant of how their minds are being tied to academic yardsticks like lambs to the sacrificial pole.

I am already feeling low in this drone, as time passes. Diesel fumes lend an air of animation to the surroundings, like the feeling that everyone around is busy in some act with a genuine purpose. With so much smoke around, it feels like I am in a dreamy cinematic zone (an idea borrowed from apna bollywood).

There were a few questions that came to my mind as I stepped out at the end of my little journey (& paid the price too). Questions these where, of poverty, pollution and passivity in our life, of greed and our artificial necessities.

They will stay, as always at the back of our minds’’’..

P.S.: - If you too wish to be as unemployed as I am, join me with your comments.I am surely keen to be in touch.