It wasn’t long,
before the midday sun
glinted like pools of water,
along the coal tar road…
And then newer patches
of modern industry …
haphazardly connected roads
sewn together like pressed staples.
Incoherently; perhaps a myriad contractors
trying to communicate with each other
and never quite a straight path.
Years in the making and not there yet.
At a lonely stretch
alongside the massive divider
a tiny bony frame swaddled in a maroon sari
darkened further by the relentless sun.
How did she get there?
Was she riding pillion and fell?
Or was she hitching a ride?
And fell across the divider?
Perhaps the person/s with her
needed no further encumbrances
so they left her there,
as testament to an unfinished road…
As seen enroute from Hampi to Goa; along the new highway that is being constructed piecemeal, for the past few years.