The other day, sighting a gridlock, I detoured to a longer route, while driving back home. But as luck would have it, I got enmeshed in a traffic snarl even there. “Darn this scorching heat”, I muttered to myself for the millionth time, sponging the sweat off my brow. As I peered outside for a sweeping view, my eyes suddenly got frozen on the panoply of prepossessing cane crafts, precariously positioned on the heap of hewn-stones, on the pavement.
My gaze slowly glided towards a woman – the creator of those amazing articles at work. I began marvelling at her dexterity, which wove wonderful patterns with intriguing speed, using thin cane sticks. The patterns somewhat looked like the wefts and warps of a fabric. The celerity of her hands reminded me of a magician’s legerdemain in performing tricks.

Reclining against a nearby tree squatted another slatternly woman, who looked like her assistant. She was slowly slitting the slender cane staves, taking care to see its stray slivers did not slash her hands, or get snagged on her sari. A teeny tot, maybe her child, lay sprawling on the hard ground, tinkering with a dicky toy car. Looked like he was suffering a severe case of the snuffles, for he constantly kept wiping his running nose with his mucky little hands. Being bred in such squalid jerry-built shacks, what would his future be like, I thought.

Would he lead the same life in sordid surroundings, after having learnt the ropes of his mother’s métier, I wondered.         

But what was truly amazing was the woman’s composed countenance, which betrayed no signs of disdain/disgust towards her harsh life. It appeared like nothing flustered her including the sweltering sun, or the pong, emanating from the adjacent open drain! She looked so phlegmatic, taking the spartan life in her stride sans any grouse. I inwardly lauded her surviving and sustaining skill, and the way she drowned herself in her dreary work with dogged determination.

As I watched those sticks getting transmogrified into magnificent models of coffee trays, fruit baskets, etc, I winced to think how I was getting unduly disgruntled over a trifling glitch! Perhaps it was my imagination. But suddenly I felt the blazing n’ blistering sun cooling down, with draughts of cool air darting towards my entire being!