(Dashehra)
Crackers popped out of the guts of faux evil today. Ravana, the power-soaked worshipper of Shiva, was burnt down to a politically incorrect heap of ashes and unburnt scrap. My eyes, dimmed by whisky and fumes, saw the dismal flames of our lives, flickering on this late summer evening – bursting ever so often, into a concealed passion of firecrackers. I saw mother-in-law’s, driven by a bounden duty to withhold the culture of older years, watching the flames with purses tightly held against stiff sarees. I saw younger mothers, holding heavily the burden of their flesh and looking to lose the deadening routine of raising children, in the flames of good and evil. What is really evil? Is it the boredom etched on a child’s face? Is it the more complex allure of a woman? Is it the swerve of the teenager, balanced powerfully on a motorcycle - papa’s gift, counting the quick step of the evening with an insouciance that time did nothing to deserve?