Trail of Ants

Ding ding. Honk honk. My ears are being drilled with the blaring high notes of Hindi-pop. Ding ding, we stop. Rev rev, we’re off. Honk honk. We swerve through a checkpoint chicane, passed sandbag retreats holding tin camouflage roofs, we skim a stack of khaki patched tyres, it’s insides filled with soil and it’s top speckled with a circle of bright pink flowers. Ding ding. Honk honk. Rev rev. Passed camps of dull mud huts, with dusty yards and grey palm roofs. The victims: caught in the economic crossfire. Honk honk. We stop. Everybody off! Not I, the tourist. Not women, nor children. Rev rev, all aboard, we’re off. Honk honk. The driver’s face is framed by the reverberating rear view mirror, his expression reflecting the air of tension I’m breathing in. Honk honk. One side lays the ‘terrorist’. The other, the ‘terrorised’. Hindi-pop now screwing my eyes, my ears, my brain. The driver’s cockpit a rare theme of atheism, not Ganesh nor Lakshmi. If this bus should blow up, the tragedy would chew up these men in shirts and sarongs, these women in their elegant saris and neatly plaited hair, their uniformed children in once-white shirts and bright blue shorts, the bearded and bald, the baggy and brawn. From the gold and silver, the flecks of grey, blinking brown and pretty-in-pink we would be left with black. A sooty scar between the razor-wire, chicanes and military debris. But lest we not think of this, ding ding, we’re off, rev rev, honk honk. Continue reading ‘So Long, Ceylon’