The Athiest Speaks

See the signboards on the low columns of the small market crammed together? See their dirty-white surfaces laminated with cheap paint on a yearly basis? See the cracked lampost where the man coming out of his fresh-out-of-the-oven Corolla, ties his dog? See the kid in a stringy T-shirt with a sodden "chappal" and a penny in his hand sitting under the same lampost? See the dull grey canopies of the street hawkers as they bite on hoarse throats? See how they were once striped red-and-white like candy canes? See them now? See how the "juice wala" wipes trickling sweat off his brow with his fingertips swollen with cortisone and proceeds to stir in hefty pebbles of sugar into a thick orange liquid inside a foggy glass container? See the green dumpster? See how it swings on screws loosened by young men in brown "salwars" with clotted heat in their minds? See how empty packs of "Lays" chips, "Cocomo" and Pepsi bottles flood out of it in an act of "globalized" rebellion? See how a dark woman, oily in the sun, with folds of fat straining against her bodice, sifts through this pile with one hand, carrying, in her other hand, layers of a smelly grey blanket with a baby inside? See the "Walls" icecream cart? Hear the jingle? See how a man of about 23 peddles through the street on this cart carrying ice-cold icecream under a blistering sun, with a song of commerical happiness blaring in his head? See the General Store wala? See how he sits on the grimy steps outside his shop with his legs wide apart and the elastic hanging out and his hand on his balls? See how his chapped brown lips play with a thin cigerrette, his hair matted in the smoke? See the sliver of a street snaking into the distance between the mechanic's rented garage and the Dye-wala's mortage on a hut? Smell the air? Smell the yellow on the mango peels as they turn to clogging the sewage beneath the road? Smell the blend of urine, sweat and rose water on the wheezings of the Third World's wretched? See the walls? See how a diesease of stagnant dirt distorts thier once-even periphery? See the people? See their eyes as they turn to the sky to thank God for the heat that burns them blind? See how they talk about the government? About Musharraff and Afghanistan and Amreeka? See how little people weave little conspiracies on the political front? See the "future suicidal bombers(--CNN)", and how they endanger the world? With their bedtime stories for sanity? With their malnourished, half-starved, mostly-jaundiced, hopeful renditions of the world? Them?



Show me this amongst the glorious turrets of your First-World glitter, and I'll show you God.