Slideways

Tonight was odd. I know India is strange to me anyway but tonight felt sideways, the sort of dislocation you get at the top floor of an old bookshop where the roofs of the city look different, or the empty docks in London just behind St.Pauls where the river seems to travel elsewhere.

I was leaving work and turned up the side street and walking towards me was the shadow of a man with fire burning on his head. As w eapproached one another I saw it was a normal man and that he had a flat wicker tray balanced on his head. On that tray was a burning oil lamp and loaves of bread. I nodded at him and he, of course, did not nod back. So I walked on.

The main road was of roiling clouds of smoke. I walked past the new car lot and there was a huge bonfire inside it - flames leaping up into the sky. But the smoke wwasn't coming from there it was blowing down the street.

I kept walking and reached home with no problems. No smell of smoke in the air. I asked the Missus and she said she had seen no smoke or fires on the streets.

Odd.

If I had followed the chap with the burning lamp where would I have ended up? My 20-year old self would have been on him like a greyhound.