Walking by...

Streets are heavy with dust, passing traffic. A cluster of women walks past, the edge of saree covers three fourth of their faces. It is December and I am back in this small town-Ghaziabad. The streets are congested, people, traffic, animals all seek space. As a kid I would visit the vegetable market with parents, learning to choose fresh vegetables from the piles, pressing the turgid lemons, smelling fingers to take in the lemon's fragrance. There are so many fragments of memories, like scraps of worn cloth. Some times when I try to conjure them the images sulk and then I sense that maybe when I am dying all these images, moments will come flooding. They say it happens when a human is gasping for the last breath. Time that carries quiet, pale noons, time that cradles first rush of hormones. Sometimes the time leaps from such spaces, a smell, a touch, a wandering breeze, dragging the mind to a long forgotten space. Copper rays on the faded bedspread, as the blood pulsates to a primitive beat of life, I sit wondering how a human life is entwined with time...