New day

The birds were chirping. The porters were shouting, searching for passengers with heaving luggages. The sun had just risen. The dawn sky was red ablaze. I was sitting in a compartment in the Gujarat Express that fine morning. I don't know what made that morning peaceful but here's what i saw, heard and felt.

As I looked out of the window, I could see a tea stall. The owner was pouring steaming hot tea for his customers. I could see them clutching their tea cups as if those cups would protect them from the early morning chill. A cassette player in one corner of the tea stall was playing the pleasant strains of the Gayatri Mantra. And in the background, the call of the muezzin reverberated through the sky. The two sounds blended beautifully, with the birds providing the chorus. It was two years after the Ahmedabad riots. The sounds seemed tell us to get on with our life. To forget all petty differences and live as one society. That peaceful morning Ahmedabad had really woken up.