Lear in the river

It is that time of the year again when the rains desert Delhi and you can sense the stirring of the autumnal month, and autumn stirs like an invisible apparition, a phantom presence by the roads - you drive alone and quiet, down the dusty highway to Delhi at sundown, and suddenly you realise that the wind has changed its touch on the trees, a mere caress, a nudge is scattering bagfulls of leaves, cracked like palms, in the dust, against the windshield.

You drive on and suddenly you realise that you are looking into the future as if you were looking into the past. That you are smiling as if at someone else.

The grasses are greying in patches in the river, on the banks. In october they will look like white fire. The beard of King Lear.

"Nothing will come of nothing: speak again."