silver spoon, wooden bats

The car hummed and roared, a horse kept back by the reins, kept in check, raring to go. They were headed to their home, three hours away when they had left the factory and now almost two hours away. The city of the Mughals, who were a dynasty which was one of the most extravagant series of rulers to have ravaged the earth. Beautiful gardens, big, magnificent mansions. Sure, there was poverty and decay now. But in the locales that were rich, you would see the newest models of the German, Swiss, American cars. You would see lush trees. Manicured gardens. Terrible city planning. But the air smelled rich. Pregnant. Money growing on trees. Scattering for the few that were caught in the crossfire. The car raved to go. Held back by speed limits, and by the traffic that, even on a Sunday, even in a global pandemic was still fairly heavy. Their city was lined with trees. It smelled of food, delicious meals that even the Mughal emperors of yore only had on special occasions. It was poor too.

The sun was setting, giving the sky the last vestiges of its golden tinge. He looked out the car, this magnificent powerful beast. He could imagine how it looked from the outside, gleaming, big, black. He looked out the window and saw the tracks. The ones laid down a few hundred years ago by the colonial masters who had taken over after the Mughals. The ones that had not been updated in the same amount of time. The ones that did not look terribly out of place in this place. People were standing in the dusty areas between the lines of tracks. Playing cricket. Little children. Rags for clothes. Faces dirty, the ones that indicated years of grime beneath their fingernails. Layers upon layers. Playing cricket. A bat. A ball. Thin steel lines welded together to form the wickets. Chappals underneath their feet. He passed by them.

A few yards away, some older boys. Playing cricket. People sitting on the edges of the tracks watching them. Clothes long and flowing. A flurry of activity. He wondered what their lives must be like. Mazdoori - hard labor - all week, every day, and then come and sit and watch their children or nephews play cricket. Even the children were probably laborers. They would study till grade five or six, or seven, some of the lucky ones would have their childhood for a whole year after that, till grade eight. But they would end up doing the same thing. Labor. This far from the city, they probably didn’t work in the houses of the rich who employed the cheap labor that this country had to offer in the form of maids, cooks, drivers. So they probably did not have to see the many faces of luxury. They didn’t know how different the lives of those who had were. But he wondered what their lives were like. Labor, day after day, relentless. And he, born into luxury, with a silver spoon. So lucky. The car whooped past them and he closed his eyes.