The view outside my cars windscreen
suddenly blurred in a maze of dust & sand storm as I took a sharp bend. I
had no option but to brake my car to a screeching halt. The radio was still
blaring on with SRK’s: “You r my chammak challoo..” but all I could hear was my heart pounding loudly. Slowly the
view cleared up and I could see a group of semi clad kids running behind a
monstrous yellow coloured rumbling machine.
“The JCB” I murmured, feeling that sense of
civil engineering pride. Gazing ahead I could see the skyline dotted with high
rise buildings, some completed, some receiving the final touches and some still
in their infant stages. Suburban Noida was developing fast transforming vast
stretches of agricultural tracts to
modern high rise apartments. Everywhere advertisement boards of the realtors
promised the dream home to the “AAm AADmi”. I was at Sec-120, paying a visit to
my colleague who had just moved into his new two BHK dream home. My thoughts
turned back to the rumbling, which by now had moved quite a distance and was
taking an entry through the gate of a realtor estate. The kids though were
retracing back their steps fighting over something among themselves. “Stupid
kids” I thought. Childhood of course is fraught with such acts of stupidity; God
knows what fun they derived running in the dust behind the beast.
Spotting a juice stall a few feet away I drove
towards it to quench my sudden pang of thirst arisen out of all the adrenaline
pumping. Baba Ramdev’s advertisement for “Lauki ka juice “adorned the juice
cart, besides the usual faces of Katrina and Kareena. “Ek mausambi ka juice
dena bhaiya’’. His mixers whirring were soon replaced by the deadening
rumbling. Sipping on the extra sweet juice I watched the kids all bare feet in
action. The JCB was carrying long reinforcement bars which were grouped
together with steel rings. As the bars dragged on the road some of these rings
came loose. All the kids jumped in that direction and after much fight one of
them collected the prized possession. A rusted steel ring of hardly 15cm
diameter.
My glass was empty. I started off again.
News headlines in AIR FM gold blarred of RBI’s monetary policy. The repo rate
was being cut by 75 basis points to boost investment ,growth and competition in
the private sector. Competition I thought. Competing not for a JEE rank, or
UPSC, or to get better appraisal but only for a rusted steel ring. I do not know
how many each of them collected. I do not know how much it will earn them. I do
not know what the Repo rate will bring
to them. I only know now the blunt face of haves and have-nots.
