Friday 19 October 2012

A Sign

It’s been a hot day. Expected, for the middle of October. The locals say that the temperature will only start dropping in November. These days, around noon, it burns.

The road is long, dusty and straight as a homophobe. Rolling desert land lies on both sides. The sky is a bright robin blue. Except for one, large grey cloud right above us. And then, right on cue: drops of water on the windshield.

Desert rain.

We rolled the windows down and drove through it for five whole minutes. The desert was bathed in the soft fragrance of petrichor for miles. It gives you a heady feeling – everything’s going to be perfect.

“Damn. This is not good. Everything’s going to become green again!”

What?

There’s been a late monsoon this year. It has shifted the crop cycle ahead and left the desert looking... not very desert-like. It’s already almost as if the desert has a week-old stubble. Most of it is wild shrubbery and the desert had been drying and consuming them for a while. But now they’ll return to claim the land.

“How will people feel if they come to the desert and see that it’s green? Damn!”

Thunder and lightning!

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