A few days back, unplanned,

I let the wheels decide.

Between the road I often take,

and the one going to the left.

Between the life lived on the main street,

afraid of the lane that leads nowhere.

The road was not a road,

it was a thought - meandering,

rising and falling like a hesitant memory,

carved by the monsoon's fingernails.

Then a pause,

At a hairpin bend, like life itself.

A boulder, a comma hung by the hill in mid-sentence,

millions of monsoons old.

A sculpture chiselled by wind's whispers,

water's patience, and sun's anger.

Wrapped around its throat,

a wild creeper, with a purple prayer,

a garland thrown by the forest

on a meditating soul.

Its name I did not know,

as we never know the names

of most things - beautiful.

And under its shadow, a small,

brown question mark, a mongoose,

waiting for the world to go quiet,

so he could cross to the other side.

I paused, and let the air enter me like a hymn.

I got lost in thoughts.

No hand could have placed that stone,

no brush could have painted that purple.

It was surely God's own rough draft,

flawless because it was unfinished.

And I, the lifelong non-believer,

folded my hands for a moment.

If not God, what else would you call this?

I would have stayed,

but life honked from behind.

It always does.

So, I pushed my pedals,

rolled downhill,

and met a new road, straight, wide, half-born,

its concrete still bleeding,

its work abandoned midway,

like many ambitions.

And as I stood at that crossing,

of a road that is and a road that will be,

I remembered another bend in my own life,

another beautiful formation,

a love I had taken for granted,

now smoothed over by time.

And then came grief,

not loud, but like dusk.

Will they come with their machines

and straighten that beautiful curve?

Will they break that ancient boulder

to make way for speed?

Will the purple be weeded out,

and the mongoose left homeless?

I do not know if I will ever come back to see that bend again.

And now the road is wide and straight,

and my mind is full, and my heart is empty.

I pedalled on, knowing that there are more bends to experience.

~

Jay Jagdev | 9^th Sept 2026