From a distance it would have looked like the crystal and other jelly fishes had gathered for a surface party in the middle of the night, their unearthly bioluminescence in full swing. There was music even. In place of the emotion-shorn trance and techno, lovelorn songs from Malayalam cinema filled the air. Belted out by All India Radio, staccato broke in rudely now and then but love and longing prevailed. Bobbing around each other in a chain dance were little catamarans and bigger boats. In the gloaming of the deep
Everyone thanked the sand mafia. They said it was their tireless digging up of the riverbed which enhanced its water-holding capacity which in turn enabled additional water from the dams to flow on without incident. Thank you marauders of the earth! They were joking, alright. These jokes, these badly articulated relief sighs, came wrapped in uneasy icons: shit-colour heads that smiled or winked unconvincingly. I too laughed for two reasons. One was from remembering a recidivist friend from my teenage years. Between bails the only work he’d engage in was
