One block away from where we live I saw men in Khakis and a crowd that keeps multiplying. They have been gathering since 4pm in the evening. The drama, whatever it was, went late into the night till the next morning, which was 2:30 am to 3am.

Post dinner I went to enquire as local medias had even arrived with reinforcement like strengthening on the part of the police. As if they had save the best for the last, I got a place where I could have the best view of the events and its developments.

Not only that, there was an overweight lady just next to me who seems to have difficulties moving. But her detail report to me was delivered perfectly as the swiftest runner would have run a track. I was too sorry for what was taking place with that big audience that was getting bigger and the media who will never spare the story.

The fittest runner-like reporter told me that in the house that everyone was facing lived an old mother and her only son. The old lady’s husband died few years ago. She also had a daughter who is married. The fateful thing was that the only son was driving her only mother away from her house.

After the intolerable fighting and threats by the son, the mother was asked to leave the house. That was when the police intervened. The neighbours showed good population, as if it was to show off the proud billion nation.

But not good neighbourliness. It was painful as they were just waiting and expecting to see off the next development. Indeed our ability to reach people in need is shrinking to an alarming low level. Our reactions are getting limited to watching them silently. Foot dragging. What more?

The poor lady was seated on a chair in front of her gate as the policemen were wrapping her clothes and belongings with bed sheets. She sat lonelier than a broken heart. I was wondering if those bed sheets were used to lull the son to sleep when he was born.

The old mother had white hair that looks milky under the candescent bulb that is already consuming too many power. Dim, yellow output of the banned bulb formed a good mood for what the old woman was going through. I realized the good reason behind its banning. But she needs brighter light. She deserves the brightest.

Something that could light her towards a new life. Her hair must have been shining black when her only son was a foetus. That celebrated foetus. Still a quest for the productive billion race. It is unfortunate to see a race in that quest. Women are merely seen as girl-bearing wretch.

The old woman sat besides a policeman, who was writing her report. Her aged face shows inexpressable emotions. Her face was weaved with lines. Old lines. Those lines showed heavily on her face. They look heavy and weary. Like the garden of burden. I said to myself, all things cruel sans beautiful.

The following day I scanned for newspapers that would carry the report of the sad event. It was not reported anywhere. Maybe it was too small an issue when there’s popular brutal practice of female foeticide. Like the selective abortion of female foetuses, life is a brittle verge of all things beautiful for the old woman too.

It is disturbing when girls are not even welcome to be born and when mothers are driven out of homes. Is this the celebration of patriarchy? I thought we are already products of generation that saw the defeated patriarchal figure that was hidden everywhere. Is this memory coming back to life? Or is this a cultivated culture of the sick memories.

I resorted to reading the alarming reports on how human beings have been destroying our vulnerable environment. Rivers running to a thinning trickle. Clogged dirty air. Unstable weather and climate moving extremely appalling. Man made detrimental pollution.

What’s ahead, then? Environment related wars and conflicts. What else? The prospect is predicted to be worse. I saw that as more than a complaint or doomsayers prediction.

But the last that any man could do after finding his helplessness. The concern has lately attained a core collective issue. In swift response Sydney deliberately switched off its lights for an hour to deliver the message of saving resources and cutting down on the greenhouse effect.

Manipur is always switched off. Shall we prize ourselves for doing the best in cutting down greenhouse effects? Recently, the United Nations Security Council also discussed on saving the world from all sorts of depletion and scarcity besides the alarm attached to that. What have the sons done again?

As I reflect, I was reminded of the book of Genesis where the first woman was portrayed as the first sinner and blamed for that first bite that changed eternity.

Is this why her foetus goes to the drain? Or is this why she was driven out of her house. Is that man on work again? But the desperate eligible hormones bursting Adam’s tribe are multiplying everywhere.

They have invaded the newspapers. Some with black and white advertisement. Some with poor colours. But they still seem to be making their choice.

If it were not for the fair, it would be for the lovely. But all things cruel sans beautiful.