Either Way...

The sun playing hide & seek with tree leaves, spins dark ribbons on the narrow road. The world around me slows down at the flash of the red circle. Inertia, Impatience, Ilayaraja's solitary violin - Inside my head. I can still taste the coffee of five minutes ago. Autos in the opposite direction, draped in yellow and black, fart gloriously and move on. I close my eyes to avoid the dust, swirling up fast & furious, disturbed & distributed by myriad triads of wheels. Why do people move from Point A to Point B, at any given minute? Small rectangles, automated miniatures that walk, talk, laugh, if I look closely. TheGray creeps in slowly, the half hour foreplay before a mild drizzle. (Nothing impulsive about Bangalore, not even the skies!)The kind of gray that seeps into every colour. Finally everything looks like different gradations of gray. Even the breeze feels gray. A polite warning for nothing. The pace increases ever so slightly. I get off the auto. I walk. A cool prick. I look up and spread my palms. A new transparent prisoner, round and shiny. Rectangles, now with faces, unfamiliar & forgettable move past me, unrelated except for the fact that we are all on this road, at this moment, as the skies unfold. No burden on the memory, no inextricable entwining. Oh Oh Megam Vandhadho ('The clouds have arrived!'), cooes Janaki inside my ear. Coincidence! A childhood fantasy, preserved beneath layers of cold cynicism. A young, impulsive Revathy, playing hookey & dancing in the rain. Poovilangu Thevai Illaye Du Du Du Du. ("There is no need for the garlanded restraint of marriage."). A rectangle, still, but one that dances, cutting through the rain. I feel the skin on my face moving. I grin.