They are changing my road

For the past two nights I cannot sleep. I hear trucks, something rolling, things being dropped. There are no human sounds. The lane we live in is being given a concrete finish.

I prefer tarred roads. I recall a childhood and even an adolescence when they would add fresh tar to pockmarked streets and there’d be a peculiar smell and we’d like to step on it when it was still not set; a bit would stick to our shoes, shiny, still black from being wet like fresh goat shit. As we walked, it would make a putch-putch sound like someone eating noisily but slowly.

If it was a large lump, it would flatten out and the walk would become a bit loopy; a smaller bit would just graze the floor. Once home, it would be scraped out.

When I think about that, it makes me wonder how I had brought a little of the road inside the home, sort of carried it with my feet and then it lay there – all ash.

It is the memory of walking on new roads that still makes my heart heavy even if one missed the familiar puddles. We loved puddles in all their murky brown with toffee wrappers floating in and pebbles settling down. We were so uncaring that during the rains we’d put our feet in, first gingerly and then with confidence. We thought we were washing our feet; yes, anything with water meant a wash. But the tarred roads were also our brand new stride. And they looked so stunning with the black and white dividers. Or the zebra crossings where we’d wait, move, wait, run…we never bothered about signals. The traffic cop would whistle, but we were already on the other side.

Concrete slabs are not the same. Everything changes – the walk, the wheels on it, and the sound of things as they fall. Even the colours look different. There is no starkness. In urban dwellings, we do not expect pure mud, yet the trees over tarred roads looked comfortable. They reflected well in the night light and monsoon washed streets…oh, rain water on grey was sensuous.

On nights when we went for a drive, the road looked like a snake. We’d stop by the sea and watch the reflection of the palm fronds on grey like a lover’s fingers caressing the sheen.

Tonight the trucks will come again. More noise, more concrete slabs will be laid. I will get used to it. It has anyway been years since I brought a piece of road home. Nothing sticks to the soles anymore.

My feet have stopped desiring roads.

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The second picture was taken from my window on a not-too-long-ago drizzle day.