Sighting by the Mississippi

You'd probably want to go to Mardi Gras, if you were around in Conway, Arkansas in February. However, the lure of skin & intoxication was not quite as powerful as the dread of driving all the way to New Orleans and so, one fine weekend self and colleagues turned east on the I-40 & set sail for Memphis, Tennessee.

For those of us used to shaking it on Bannerghatta road twice a day, driving on an American freeway is stuff happinesses are made of. However, so are the hours of hibernation you could choose to slip into. So while my good friend Yesh took the wheel, I closed my eyes upon the world & apart from giving Yesh dirty looks, every once in a while, for talking too much to Vineet too loud, the journey was fairly obscure for me.

And somewhere in the fringes of West Memphis, amidst the slightly chilly open spaces cluttered with not so opulent households - the Mississippi still not in sight - & the skyscrapers lining the faraway horizon, there was this billboard with the sketch of an old gentleman clad scantily in his loincloth, his forehead wrinkled with the years gone by, his sight lost to thoughts. M. K. Gandhi stood in that relatively shoddy neighbourhood in distant Memphis with his message of simplicity, peace and non-violence.

It was, suddenly, a warm day.