The 'hanted' house

 The one-time sleepy nearby town that I remember as one busy market street surrounded by lower middle class households is now almost an adolescent city. A little world so big with its sleepy attraction; bountiful providences of urbanism now kissing earth and the land value that was once measured in acres is now done in yards. A protuberant belly of possibilities. Obscenely bulging, modernist pathologies greedily feasting upon the sublimating humility of free lands with their tiny corners of untamed wilderness. There are industrial parks and zones coming around as this part of the Delhi NCR gets its turn to become congested, industrialized and polluted. The urban lark spreading its wings with rigidly designed viewpoint.

They now have a funfair also on the ground where once Ramleela used to be staged. A lovely, twinkling, sparkling constellation of consumerism. The advertisement fliers and pamphlets announce Ferris wheel, handicraft bazaar, dance and singing competitions, stage shows, shopping bonanzas, camel ride and hanted house. Yes, you read it right it’s ‘hanted house’. Probably they mean haunted house and the poor ‘u’ is left to woo the art of non-being.

The group of boys in the neighborhood, who spend most of their time in the streets, have come really ‘hanted’ from the fair. They have toy bugles and horns of multitudinous pitch, notes and frequencies. The musical toys share a magical chemistry with their restless enthusiasm for fun and frolics. They are now giving the best of their lungpower to the toy musicals ranging from the shrillest, which can drill a hole in your brain, to the loudest that can shred one’s eardrum to pieces. It sounds like war music. I deem it fit to stop reading and make the most of the music. I try to choreograph a few steps to go along the angry music. Soon I realize that I’m too amateur to do full justice to this playful ruckus and din. A full lunatic may do something about it. Half-lunatics like yours truly, with his still considerate discretion, stand no chance at all.