Criss Cross Footpath...

Coming back from work today, he chose to skip the last bus and walk the last haul to his home. It would have been a stretch of about 2 kilometers. And the traffic in the roads is much less, lesser than it generally was at this time of the day on the other days. It is a Saturday.

The pavement is being relaid by the municipal council. At some places it is done and at others heaps of rubble lie. On varying intervals, one can encounter icecream vendors, offering chills to beat the heat. Some Red, some blue. Not so frequently one cand also find old women, weakened by age and poverty, trying to raise additional income by selling roasted corn cobs. In local language they are called bhutta. The roasts inside their verdant green, add more heat to the prevalent scorch. And if one gets thirsty, there is that guy selling coconut water just at the crossing, where from he will turn left to redirect himself towards his dwellings.

But we are not talking here about the Weak women or their emancipation. Neither is this story about the red and green icecream stalls. This story is about his way back from office, and we'll continue with that.

It has been a long day at work for him. The boss was late for a meeting, and so it came to him to entertain the client in the meantime. It has always been a trauma for him, to feign a smile, and pretend to be interested in a conversation, which he would never choose to be in. But an hour passes, and there is his boss, with that hypocritic smile and all. And a bundle of effusive apologies. He always wondered why didnt these people see through the crap, was it their own character that made them permeable to this swarm of hypocrisy, or have the times really changed and hypocrisy was a nonexistent phenomenon now, something that was takebn for granted, a lot like gravity.

Then six more hours of meetings, or arranging for meetings. And then at 6, he picked his bags and re-crossed the threshold , with a different velocity vector, more comonly put, in the opposite direction. But that again is common sense, isnt it? And i didnt need to put it. But the damage has been done.

At last he boarded that little bus, which will be jam packed in a little more time. And began the journey to his room. The rocking bus and the blaring FM always made him sleepy. And sometimes he had to force himself to keep his eyes open. Missing his stop meant going far further, and that added a lot of nuisance value.

But he was walking when we started, didnt we? Well he still is, just that he has already crossed that coconut water seller on the crossing, and now he is on the newly laid footpath. The big gray concrete slabs are laid in squarish fashion, with cement linings that run between them in the criss cross fashion. He stares at them, and in his mind he is reminded of a chess board, in which the squares are neither black nor white. They are not even squares, rather something in between. And yes the color is GRAY, neither black nor white. And he wonders, what kind of moves can one play on this board, with the expected rules. When can one square be yours and when not, no one can know. And no one is sure of a safe move on this board.

He looks ahead, and watches, this footpath continuing in a long stretch, complimenting the dark metalled road. He shrugs his shoulders, and walks along, you see home is still a bit further. And there are too many grey squares along the footpath of happenstance.

One has to walk, to reach somewhere. And stories are not much of a help. After all when ones sliderule is a criss cross footpath, how can one thing not be linked to another. How can a story be just a story...?