Jasmine Dreams

Through a crowded bus, through limbs and tufts of hair, a slanted rain tried to get to the other side. In the cloudy interior, two women welcomed it in their faces and sarees for a few minutes, before pulling down the window shades. One of them was stringing garlands with jasmine flowers. She will get down at the end of her journey, into the rain, clutching her plastic bag of garlands, the muddy water gushing at her naked feet. It isn't hard to find a good rain to drench in.

They all go somewhere. To their secrets, neighbors, jars of salt, chilly and turmeric, to lunches of rice and yogurt. Sometimes, the street dog follows them till their doorsteps.

Railway tracks border their villages. The trains stopping at their tiny railway stations carry them on a pilgrimage to temples far away. They meet working women traveling alone, with their own share of stories, and try to tell them with unabashed awe that it had all been unimaginable in their times. They huddle together to talk about sons and daughters and wedding feasts into the night as the train whizzes by villages similar to their own.

They all go somewhere. And then, they go home.