Out and Back

I drove to the dentist and saw a delicate, prancing white cow, painted on the blue door of a water-lorry. A woman rode pillion on the back of a motorcycle, in a wine-red churidar-kameez. Her gold-bordered dupatta was pulled over her head to cover her face completely, like a monk's cowl. A graceful draping of cloth, a mere allusion to the hidden body.

Passing the huge hoardings which advertise jewellry shops, you would think Chennai is a city of gold. Pale, beautiful women wear gold bangles stacked to the elbow; gold belts; necklaces; chains of gold across their hair. They are apsaras, celestial beings who live in the sky, while our dull, ant-like forms struggle below.

The dentist's office: clean, modern, hushed. The victim patient faces a floor-to-ceiling window, beyond which is a crowded courtyard garden of palms and bamboos. On one wall is a photograph taken by Ramesh - a separate climate, another kind of vegetation:

photograph by Ramesh Gandhi

A little pain, some chit-chat, then release into the balmy air and empty sky of the end of the cool season. Masses of glowing bougainvillea - they flower most profusely when there is not enough water. Traffic, and hoardings, and the beach. Stands being put up, shielded with palm-leaf matting, for the Republic Day parade on the 26th. The bottle-neck of Santhome High Road, opening out at Foreshore Estates and the estuary, and home.