Old Mahabalipuram road

Every now and again, I feel like something inside of me slips out of my body, a slow escape. Drifting, ever so gently my vision elevates, all the vehicles and traffic lights ahead, are now beneath. I'm not sure what this is that escapes, what this is that lets me see the world with a third eye, the eyes of a touring foreigner. Whatever it is looks from above, and gradually the scenes change, all that has become familiar is now distant. I'm now on the side of a long lost lazy city road. A capital city, and a major road but scattered all over are tar devoid trenches and ditches. Aging, neglected tamarind trees stoop over from the sides, spacing out flimsy wooden shacks selling tea, coffee, cigarette, paan and porn which naught the shade would be seared by the tropic blaze. My dupatta flutters, fighting the pin that holds it in place, following the autorickshaw that just sped by. Pulling it back down, I take a step forward onto the road momentarily bare, tippy toed I try to look past the bend for the PTC, the leaf green public transport bus which will take me to City Center. A couple have already passed bursting, spilling men out of two metal cavities, sorry excuses for exits, clinging on to rusty window grills occasionally giving in for a death that headlines and soon is forgotten. Taking a step back onto the sandy pseudo pavement I look at my watch, half past ten, why are the buses so crowded anyway, the working crowd should have long made it to their offices, the fisherwomen with their giant bamboo woven baskets of fresh fish should be at the market already, not college kids, too early for lunch, hmmm, India and its overpopulation issues.

HOOOOONK!

Oops, the light turned green, when did that happen? Whatever slipped from my being abruptly repositions as I hit the accelerator of my Lexus. I shake my head and wonder why the hell I keep doing that, as the car glides over the smooth, even tarred American road taking me home. And once again that lazy road and the green buses are buried within layers of subconciousness.