After a long day i sat outside my home which is in front of a public laundry. Dirty linens are washed here.and even dried. All in one dollar and 30 minutes! I often sit in these stairs which end on a main street called the Stewart Street. People come and go.Some make an eye contact with me and with others, I make an eye contact.There is a difference between the two.Infact many differences.But let me rush ahead.I am on a street!
While I sat and saw America and Americans,coming and going; walking and driving, I saw, not only the movement of people but also of money.Those who drove into the laundry, would park their cars and insert few cents into a small pole to ensure that their cars are not towed. This is mechanized parking.
To wash and dry clothes, these laundry machines would need a dollar.Without this, they would not wash clothes.Nor would they dry.They would also make you wait.While you wait, your cell phone might ring.Or, you might choose to ring some one's cell phone.Either way, you would pay and so would be the person at the other end.
The tumbler of the washing machine roles, and with it roles the capitalist economy.In the midst of this circulation, I realized that my right hand slipped into the left pocket of my cotton shirt.And it picked something; a soft tender texture,crushed and weak but some thing I could not avoid. It was an image of Gandhi.But more than that, the base of the image that contained that image; a currency note.It made me remember India.
Memories of my country are always fond but this one was different.It seemed I remembered the birth of my nation through a currency note.
Memories were blurred and as the eyes focused, I saw a capitalist's view..
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