The road runs along the eastern coast, and in places is very picturesque. The sedentary city dweller, out on a rare drive, is tempted to divide his attention between the road and the scenery. This is perilous in the extreme, for the road is famous for homicidal-suicidal-maniacal drivers who attempt to overtake slower traffic by drifting on to the wrong side of the road, and beg death to overtake them in turn. But…but have they forgotten that one only lives once? In this body, at any rate. One may come back as an ant, or an alien, but in this body, this is the only life. That is the theory. It cannot be proven. It cannot be disproven.
Where were we? Yes, ECR, where there are many spots which are deadly beautiful. One stretch where the hordes of city dwellers picnic among the casuarina groves, littering them and doing their best to make them as squalid as their dwelling places; perhaps they no sooner reach this ‘picnic’ spot than they are homesick for the filth and grime of the city?
A broad swathe of sandy land dotted with the occasional palm tree, other interesting vegetation that one kens not the names of leads to the beach, a strip of clean sand that stretches along the water’s edge. The Bay of Bengal rolls up and repeatedly flings itself onto the sand. This is Sunday, so the beach is crawling with people.
It is late afternoon, nearly evening, but the day is overcast, twilit. It seems to me that the whole world is twilit, in the uncertain time between pralayam and life as usual. It may be that it is not the world, but me. Be that as it may.
Somehow, the people seem to be listless, apathetic even. Or perhaps it is me again, my senses jaded. I have seen this. All this is predictable, nothing exhilaratingly new. Nevertheless, the camera may see it differently.
