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sweat beads on his forehead disperse in the smoke clouds that escape the dusty silencers reducing the noise emitted by exhausts of combustion engines residing in knackered vehicles stuck in an afternoon traffic jam on a small, busy street of Lahore
the labourer catches my gaze as he wipes his perspiration with the way too tattered sleeve of his drenched khaki kameez while i get lost in the sweet song by a famous Bollywood singer and casually drum my fingers on the steering wheel of my car
half an hour of prolonged wait evaporates my scanty patience so i press my manicured hand on the horn and leave it there while that labourer sits idly on the dry, scorched footpath by the way too crowded street under the burning sun of July
a close look at his wrinkled face reveals his chapped and dry lips to my eyes loaded with make-up and preserved with the cool air emanating from the AC of the car that's causing me to worry much about ample petrol being wasted in this way too useless traffic jam
tolerance on the verge of death escapes the capsule of my car to set in the lap of the labourer while he struggles in smoke clouds to run his tongue over his dry lips and look quietly at the water bottle placed on my new dashboard stand to leave me guilty, way too guilty
amidst the shrill, honking horns i gesture him towards my vehicle so he staggers across the machines to stand beside the glass window that i roll down to hand him over my way too costly bottle of water one that i bought at a famous mall two months ago with my friends
quietly, he returns the empty bottle and teeters back to the footpath as the cars start proceeding slowly a miracle resulting from a prayer that escaped his dry, parched lips when they tasted the cool water and tears rolling down his cheeks that put me to shame, oh shame!
13/02/2019
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~Glossary~
● Bollywood - The Indian film industry, based in the city of Mumbai, India. ● kameez - an upper garment for men and women, originating in the Indian subcontinent, with regional variations of form. ● khaaki - Of a dull brownish yellow, or drab color; applied to cloth, originally to a stout brownish cotton cloth. ● Lahore - Lahore is the capital city of the Pakistani province of Punjab. Lahore is the country's second-most populous city after Karachi, and is one of Pakistan's wealthiest cities with an estimated GDP of $58.14 billion as of 2015.
