I wanted to take the greens, all the shades, light dark almost yellowgreen and greedily drink them in, the sap running along my veins, feel the gritty texture of the earth on my skin and look up to a blue sky fluffy with clouds and count them, blow at them the way a child blows bubbles. The black road was surprisingly smooth, for a non-important back road joining two non-important places in the state, too good for a tar road, as it wound its way languidly past two-shop hamlets, a primary school in pale blue with its gates wide open, a translucent pond with lotus blooms and a white temple with a fluttering flag in the distance, fields with straight furrows, a donkey or two. I wanted to take the greens and drink them in, instead I went shutter happy. The road, the road through the windshield in focus out of focus offcentered, the roadside, tea stalls, a sundry buffalo or two, a kid by an oversized cycle who toothily waved goodbye.

It doesn’t need an announcement or crowds or followers, I notice, as I watch the ascetic blend with the people mass, a certain bearing, aloofness hints at a different order of priorities, a watchfulness that preempts any new karma from being created even as the backlog is dutifully, systematically, sorted and settled.