A Junction

There is this particular junction I cross everyday on the way back from college. One of the main roads in the city which is now a huge mix of one-ways,complicated yet simple routes that has been changed from its main course ever since the construction and all the digging began for the Metro Rail project.Envisaged by the traffic policemen in white and fluorescent overall-ed workers regulating the traffic with red flags, I am like the flock of sheep they push towards a certain direction every single day,to and fro the same route.

By now, after years of riding, I am more or less mechanical, with the music playing through my player and regular checks on the rear-view mirror, I am good to go at any point in time. But something struck me of late. I have been using this route for a long time before the construction process (with huge cranes) ever began and never noticed anything extraordinary. Just the same old schools and colleges in the locality, the buses and the ever impeding vehicular traffic. I guess that's the thing about two-ways. When you have the option to look and you don't? Or is it just that a whole lot of obstacles have been removed from the view for us to appreciate the possible beauty?

 

 I get a couple of seconds to admire the sky and the overall setting everyday while waiting for the traffic to move. Sometimes I wish it was more because everything looks so beautiful. The way the cranes' load stands in mid-air and the steel containers lie still- it's almost poetic, that I could keep staring at it for hours.  Sometimes, the sun is out in the open blinding me and at the other times, dark, rolling cottony-clouds set the perfect background for all the cranes and the tiny people in small helmets. A natural hierarchy exists there. Colourful hemets, little people, the containers, the cranes and the sky. What's more astonishing is the ability for the setting to change everyday yet appear similarly enthralling and beautiful. Some days, the crane is moving and some days its still, but for the sly wind to brush against it, different sky settings... but it's lovely, every single day. In the entire half hour ride back home, that's a scene I neither look forward to nor avoid, but enjoy just as it comes. In that singular couple of moments.

 I wonder if the junction is in new light or if I am perceiving it to be.Am I supplied with a new choice or have I trained myself to look around? Whatever it is, it is beautiful. Maybe, I could apply it to my life and move on as and when the signal turns green.

Do you have a similar story? Finding something utterly peaceful in the midst of chaos and loudness?
Please do share it with me here. I would love to know what I am missing out on. Cheers and much love! :)

~Hemu