Return of the Natives

Nature always reflects what is happening in society.

A very evocative photograph of  soil erosion captured by my young FB friend Akshay Dandekar, on a recent trip to Matheran,  a hill station in the Sahyadri mountains  on India's western coast.

I saw something in the photograph.   Which I attach alongside , together with the original.  

आजकाल प्रलोभनं इतकी असतात कि एरवी एकामेकाला घट्ट धरून बसणारी लोक सुद्धा एकामेकाला जोडणारी लाल आई सोडून कुठेतरी दूर पळ्तात जग बघायला निघतात आणि उन्हात होरपळून , एकामेकाला धरून घाबरून परत निघतात. बाहेरच जग सुंदर असतं , रंगीत अस्त , स्वप्नात्ल्यासारख असतं , पण "ये, निर्धास्त रहा , आम्ही सगळे आहोत , वेडा वाकडा असशील पण आमचा आहेस अस म्हणणार लाल मातीचं कोणीच नसतं …. "

So many children safely growing together amidst familiar soils, and a non stop exposure to other worlds sees a few leave the fold, and stray away into a dry and cruel world Glamorous and dreamy at first, it slowly burns deep inside, as they struggle back, holding on to each other hankering after someone who always said, "Come back to the fold, twisted and turned you may be, but in the end, you are ours, deep in the red of the earth."