‘Blossoming’

The longest day of the year is by definition the hottest day of the year, and so this thing happens nearly every summer at solstice on these plains, our home, and particularly during those summers in which the rains fail to come on time. It's as though the baking sun finally succeeds in bubbling long-simmering contentions – between neighbours, relatives, friends – up to the surface, at which point they spill over into the fields and chowks and bylanes. And always, it seems in these plains of ours, the disagreements are the same: as heated arguments behind closed doors get louder and louder, the gates eventually are thrown open, and the shouts of one family bleed into those of another, until the two sides are crying to the heavens in unison. Normalcy, normalcy zindabad! screams one side, shaking their fists in the air and wailing like possessed beasts. Normalcy, normalcy murdabad! shrieks the other side, pounding on walls and floors, kicking at frightened chickens and rending garments.

The hubbub, naturally, riles others to voice their own complaints, to burn old photos and court summons and unfunny cartoons, each on one side of the line or the other. "I remember the old days!" yells a large man sitting in a small bush. "The old days were very nice indeed!" He begins to scuffle with a righteous young woman in red boots, who shouts back at him, "There were no old days, old man! There is only today – this hot, vast, unrelenting expanse!" Brawls continue to break out throughout our plains: "There ought to be joy and delight, and I'm unhappy!" yells a teacher. "There ought to be fantasy and awe, and I'm bored!" yells a civil servant. "There ought to be great golden copulations!" yells a young boy quickly, before his mother thumps him on the back of the head.

Normalcy, normalcy zindabad! they yell into the evening. Normalcy, normalcy murdabad! they continue as the moon rises, and the heat lightening crackles on the horizon.