Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Silent margins and a confusing nightscape


The margins strike back... margins strike back when there is nowhere to go! Kaleidoscope on his return from the far south, beyond the city of Kolkata in the middle of the night felt it melting down everything and reshaping the hierarchical cityscape! The hierarchy within which Kaleidoscope has engraved his everydayness.

It was a very long day for the driver who was busy in transporting people to places "on government duty" finally to end up in the southern most part of the district to pick up Kaleidoscope and drop him to the middle of another district. Meanwhile he had to negotiate between the unruly traffic, truck 'lines' near the port, dusty warehouses. He didnt say a word because he was not supposed to. It was late, as late as the dogs in the alleyways are tired, alleyways are empty and one can finally pick up some speed inside the city streets.

Finally near one of the 'ugliest' addition to his city the large plastic casted "Hanuman" he stopped. He had to, otherwise the last chance to pick up his dinner will be gone!

"Why didnt you say earlier? you could have picked it up and had it while we were at work! Its too late!" Said Kaleidoscope.

A smile was enough for him to understand his service condition - "duty first." As every boss travelling by these cars knows, its often an unequal distribution of choices, that makes the people from higher echelons to exercise more control how they live. Not only what they have in dinner but also when they have the dinner!

Kaleidoscope was watching the hanuman statue from the distance, from inside the car through the dusty windscreen. When he experimented with his eyes to make it nearly shut he could see the night was already engulfing every boundaries. Otherwise, why on earth that statue gets installed on the road divider to accomodate the unthinkable! Otherwise, why would the driver finally say "I need to have my dinner now!" with a silent "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"

Kaleidoscope wonders the middle of the nightscape through his half closed eyes should have been the real and noting down the time of arrival and kilometers before finally saying a polite good night is just kitsch, ugly hyperreal kitsch, uglier than the Hanuman statue in the middle of nowhere!  

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