VIII.

Morning at Anandpur Sahib

Dawn in nowhere. Baisakhi.

Lush Brown Fields.

Ready. Eager. Shrieking to be cut.

To be taken Away. For something.

Like this bus on this bridge.

Over the river that does not exist anymore.

A dry bed full of pebbles,

But floods the field when monsoon hits, so they say.

And during those days, it's Sutlej.

6:43 AM, still in nowhere

Frantic calls, restless passengers.

Hungry and tired.

Closed shops, Brown Fields.

Cut and bundled.

Ready. Eager. To be taken away. For something.

Like this lost bus, on the road too narrow for itself.

Moving to the mountains, hopefully,

Crawling through the open fields as far as the eyes can see.

Brown and Green. Brown and Green.

The Morning sun is here

Like a Fullbright Scholar at Stanford.

Faint outlines of the ranges, too faint to be easily missed.

Empty Brown Fields. Cut, Bundled, and Taken away.

Probably like this bus, Navigating to the parking lot,

Of the nearest Gurudwara.

Some 2 kilometers away.

Content faces, Jokes in the air.

Bus on the road. Amidst the Eager Brown Fields.

Ayushmaan Mishra · 2026-06-02