Planes, trains and automobiles

As the golden sun burned my back I took another stride in the wilderness of modern warfare tactics repository. Yonder scurried the noisy birds, metalled and manned, taxiing merrily in the acrid sun ripping through the scorched bosom of the mighty warriorland and emerging into the brightest of skies, all geared to spit fire.

And right across the wall binding the playground of the air superiors stood a solitary edifice. Forlorn yet resolute, it sees over the young hell raisers play, everyday. And in the calmness of the cool sanctuary, restless youths stare at their machine controls in frenzy. They have all secretly given their hearts to camouflaging their incendiary winged beauties.

Stealth is what the heartless erudite call it. But for them it is like choosing the best winter clothes for their babies before they go out to play in far off skies, where the cold is unforgiving.

Untouched for centuries and unchanged by civilizations lie the vast stretch of dusty greenery defying the sordid aridity. Complacent, they whiz by in transcendental nonchalance, unmoved by human idiosyncrasies, as they allow the outsiders a wheelspace to hurry past the discomfiture of naked ancientness.

And on the wheels sit mighty iron chests carrying the most fluid of all assets of the nation, human resource. Human abound with resources. Good talkers, good listeners, good observers, good sleepers, good lovers, good seekers all go into forming the astounding gamut of human goodness. Every goodness matters and every goodness counts, even the one which is so uncategorizable that laymen inanely call it good for nothingness.

There is so much goodness around and yet we ignore its very presence at times. We so frantically mistake the lack of knowledge as lack of certain kind of goodness. In many forms does it hit us in the face and each time it does so, there is an unsuspected assailant at the other end. And by now, we all have read enough books and seen enough movies to know how to stay composed and refrain from violence and resort to mute abusing as the only Heavenapproved way of retribution. Being clad in Gandhi’s dhoti is what they call it and it has secretly become synonymous with being courteous. Come on board the chest on the wheels and you will alight transformed into a practitioner from being a mere ignorant.

Automobiles

Play me an engine and burn me some oil

and home is where you will be.

Sit, be steered and feel endeared

and home is where you will be.

and when your longing breaks all bounds

and your wistfulness gets wings,

Let them fall and flap them all

and home is where you will be.

And when in frenzy the air around

pricks and weighs you down

and you wait at a dusty crossroad

to hitchhike to the town.

Raise your arm, see, its still warm

the sun still smiles at thee.

Just a distant smoke and hum of hope

and home is where you will be.

…