The Middle

On the way back from work, everyday, they make the bus stop where it shouldn't. It's not a designated stop. But they scream out loud, curse. Ultimately, the conductor gives in. It's a desolate place, where they get down. And another bunch of them get up on the bus and, carry on. It seems, it's their slum. It's not a part of the bigger slum that bustles beside the desolate road. It's apart. Distant from the bigger slum, with boundaries probably. 

Initially, I used to get scared of them. They appear that way. Gaunt, half men, wrapped in shiny saris, backless blouses and the make up. Red lipstick on dark skin. Hair pinned back, plaited neater than most of the women on the bus. But gradually with time, the fear left me. I would look at them and wonder where they were going. To fleece money in railway stations, to dance in the homes of newborns. I wondered what it would be like in their tiny gender neutral community. They would live in parallel houses. Cook together, wash together, eat together. 

There would be less of this tremendous bias that clouds all our action and inaction. 

Do you know that God, himself is androgynous? Why else would he dress in saris, being a man? Why would he adorn a nose ring made of the flowers of moonbeam? Or have red lips? Because he imbibes qualities of both the father and the mother. Since, we were strictly occupied by bias, he created the hermaphrodites after himself.

Tonite I feel, I take myself way more seriously than I deserve. I bother myself with so many should be's and should have been's, it drives me nuts. I feel, I should slash the ropes already. Already.