Hunger

On the Highway

Its not that I have a grudge against society. The problem lies in where it finds solace. A city holds myriad thoughts and aspirations cooped up in a plethora of pigeon-holes. The spectacle is ugly. But this realization seldom dawns and that too in a few. Everybody out there is too within themselves to see what actually life was meant to be.

Yes, urbanization does bring along with it its seeming comforts that steadily benumb the gay abandon of childhood. A mountain, a valley, a stream with banks lined with pine, these metaphors of innocence are slowly replaced by a park amidst mankind’s maze, dotted with a few self-pitying wraiths supposed to be called trees, with its benches bearing disgruntled youth, men and women admiring another bud trying to reconnect to its inherent freedom, lovers with their escalating cell-phone bills, and the old lost in contemplation. This is a place where pleasure is derived from sitting in a fancy restaurant with a loved one and walking through empty streets kicking at cans.

Somewhere along the Gurgaon-Jaipur highway