Old bus routes...some familiar numerals - once relevant, now obscure... those that led homewards some twenty years back. You take that road once again...and you spot a younger self, hurrying down a bus to queue up for an auto... tired, uncertain and yet resolute to get somewhere.

To the right, the busy road takes a sharp turn... a turn you took quite often some twenty years back...the road that led you to an old lady, frail yet firm. She was a window to your childhood...her wrinkled hands once held you with all the love in the world when you were yet to make sense of anything at all... you now feel her presence in your roots... her story resonating in your being each day. The form now faded, she stays afloat in those uncountable waves that rhythmically make their way to the sea..

Ah, you crossed that river too...the precarious ferry ghat, the fragile jetty that took you to tiny vessels painted in bright shades, mocking the greyness of the tireless river. You sat on the edge, and looked to your left, and then to your right, in that fine drizzle which played light notes of probabilities, unsettling the harmonious dance of the waves...they said as you believed, the shore across would lead homewards.

The mirror accumulates a fine layer of dust...you see your younger self - a distant figure...now a form, now a shadow...a play of light and darkness... You turn away, avoiding eye contact... you don't seek embarrassing conversations...you don't want questions, for you have no answers...whose life did you live...what home did you seek...which routes did you take...you wonder no more...

The sun silently sets in the distance - colours of the twilight like sharp highlighter pens, interrogating the validity of options and choices...