Life on a strip of land 7 km long...

… and infinitely wide, but the width is hardly your concern. BPL to BCM, BCM to BPL. Back and forth. Over and over again. This Saturday, and the next, and the one after. Sometimes in the middle of the week. Sometimes on a Sunday.

Sometimes impromptu. Sometimes as per plan. Sometimes to get supplies. Sometimes to find some peace of mind. Sometimes to cross the bridge. Just for the heck of it.

Sometimes to stuff yourself. Sometimes to Geets. Sometimes to Venks. Sometimes for booze. Sometimes for chocolates. Sometimes for, well, just good old Sundays.

Sometimes in the fading orange sun on a winter Sunday evening. Sometimes in the blistering weekday summer afternoon wind. Sometimes in the glittering Ursa Major pointing the way on a clear Saturday night. Sometimes in a cloudy dusk on a weekday evening, when the boundary between a day and its end are blurred. Sometimes looking for an ambience to quote, but it is the normalcy, the mundane-ness of the environs – the sun, the river, the wind, the clouds, everything – that is abnormal.

The temple bells start their rhythm somewhere in the back of your mind. The chipper blares at your left. A truck begins its ritual ride into the projects gate, condemning a set of logs to their destiny. Another of the locals walks to the middle of the dreaded crossing, oblivious to the incoming traffic, just as he is oblivious to the English prayers for Rooney’s timely recovery. A big red bus emerges out of nowhere, followed by a blue one. Left behind is a sea of human faces, a sea of feelings, opinions, expectations – waiting, moving, milling about.

You chose to walk down the bridge, rather than take the auto, just like a day in the past. Vehicles whip past, as the warm wind blowing across your face, just as they did on that day too. A beggar sits there, the good arm outstretched, just as he did on that day too.

The road is one long stretch. But it forks at the Ambedkar statue. A couple of shops beyond, a barber to the left. You take the all important turn where you see the bright lit billboard, just as you always do, and it is the end, just like it always is. Because that just about marks the edges of the strip.

Strip that is 7 km long, and yet camouflages ambitions that are miles high, though confused and muddled.