Dimmed sunlight passing through the curtains, a short spell of morning shower that wet the roads and earth to send the ever sweet waft of petrichor - your way.
Waking up dreary eyed from the reveling last night, wanting to stay in. But, we have a train to catch. The feeling of leaving a place after a while, with such a weather, makes the waking up even more difficult.
Get up, brush one's teeth, ruminate on whether to bathe before the train - since one will anyway do the post-train-covid-ritual-headbath once one reaches. Last minute packing, stuffing bags with accumulated accouterments from one's stay.
Rush to book the cab, get seated with more luggage that one thought one had. And then after a few streets have passed one realizes - one misses the city, the city that was nothing but a dull pile of junk earlier for them.
The city that took more away, than it ever gave - emotions, money, ambitions, health, lovers, friends and years. Such a city could never be a source of nostalgia. But eventually, one realizes, the city gave. It gave, in ways never imagined. It gave, years after one last set foot on its soil. It gave, when there was no one else standing beside.
With a sombre mood, one approaches the railway station. The coolie waiting to pounce on one's drudgery and make his 7th 'boni' of the day. One sits in the window seat, looks out on the board that says 'work in progress', and then it hits you. Isn't that what the city is? Isn't that what the world is? Isn't it what each one of us are? -
'A work in progress'