Chapter 13 - Political Posters

 

13

 

            The bus slowed near a village whose name I could not properly read because the board itself had faded under dust, rain, and forgotten years. Half the letters were gone. Only the rust remained loyal.

 

            But the political posters were fresh.

 

            Huge smiling faces covered the cracked walls like new paint over old pain. One leader folded his hands respectfully. Another pointed toward the sky as if he personally knew the address of the future. A third smiled with such confidence that one could almost believe electricity, jobs, roads, and honesty were waiting just around the next turn.

 

            Yet beneath those posters, the wall itself was breaking.           The plaster had peeled away. Bricks showed through like exposed bones. Rainwater stains ran downward like old tears that had stopped asking for attention.

 

            I kept watching through the bus window.

 

            In villages, walls tell the truth more honestly than speeches.  A poor man repairs his roof before festivals. A government repairs slogans before elections.

 

            The bus stopped near a tea stall. A few men sat on broken benches discussing politics with the seriousness of philosophers and the helplessness of prisoners. In India, even the poorest man carries political opinions like inherited property. He may not own land, but he owns arguments.

 

An old farmer stirred his tea slowly and said,

“Every election gives us new promises. Only the potholes remain permanent.”

 

            Everyone laughed.  Not because it was funny…Because it was true.  Truth often survives in villages disguised as humor.

 

            Outside the stall, another poster hung loosely from a bamboo pole. The rope on one side had snapped, so the leader’s smiling face bent downward awkwardly, as if even confidence becomes tired after a while.

 

            I remembered something I had once seen in a video.

 

            A political banner had been placed against a wall, waiting to be erected properly. Before workers could fix it, stray dogs gathered around it. They barked continuously at the smiling face printed on the flex.

 

            Not one dog looked afraid.  Not one dog looked impressed.  They barked as if instinct could recognize performance better than people do.  That video stayed in my mind for days.  Animals do not understand manifestos, but sometimes they understand pretence.

 

            The strange thing about power is this:  the farther it stands from ordinary suffering, the larger its photographs become.

 

            In rich colonies, politicians arrive quietly in cars with dark windows.  In poor villages, their faces become giant.  As if size itself can replace change.

 

            The bus moved again.

 

            Children walked barefoot beside walls carrying promises worth crores. Buffaloes stood under giant election banners while flies rested peacefully on both the animals and the leaders’ printed faces without discrimination.

 

            Nature has no respect for status.

 

 

 

 

            A buffalo does not care who the chief minister is.  A crow will sit equally on a minister’s statue and a broken electric pole. 

 

            Only humans create ladders inside dust.

 

            As we crossed deeper into the countryside, I noticed a strange pattern. The poorest homes carried the brightest political colors. Tiny mud houses stood beside giant posters announcing development schemes. Walls without toilets displayed advertisements about progress.

 

            It felt almost poetic.

 

Reality whispered.

Posters shouted.

 

            And in most societies, shouting wins elections.

 

            I remembered my years in the Army.

 

            There, walls rarely carried smiling faces. Orders mattered more than slogans. A bunker never became stronger because someone painted patriotic lines on it. Discipline had to exist beyond words.

 

            Civilian life often felt different.

 

            Here, language itself had become construction material.

 

“Development.”

“Change.”

“Transformation.”

“Future.”

 

            Big words are cheaper than cement.  Perhaps that is why they are used more.

 

            The conductor switched on loud music inside the bus. A romantic song filled the air while outside, an old woman carried firewood on her back past a wall that promised “modern villages.”

 

            The contrast felt unbearable.  Sometimes a nation moves forward only in advertisements.

 

            The passengers barely noticed anything outside. Some scrolled endlessly on phones. Some slept. Some argued over seat space. Life teaches survival first, observation later.

 

            But window seats curse people differently.  Those who keep looking outside eventually begin collecting invisible wounds.

 

            A young boy entered the bus at the next stop selling cheap pens. He moved seat to seat quietly.

 

“No one buys thoughts,” I suddenly thought.

“Only things.”

 

            A politician understands this deeply.  That is why speeches are emotional, not truthful because truth demands patience and emotion demands reaction.  And elections are won by reaction.

 

            The boy selling pens got down after earning almost nothing. As the bus started moving again, I saw him disappear near another damaged wall carrying another smiling face.

 

            For a moment, it felt as if the posters were richer than the people themselves.  Maybe they actually were.  Democracy becomes strange when printing costs more than human dignity.

 

            The road turned rough. The bus shook violently.

 

            One poster had partially torn from the middle. The leader’s smile remained intact, but the eyes were missing because the flex had ripped exactly there.

 

            I kept staring at it.

            Without eyes, every leader looks honest.

 

            Rain clouds gathered slowly above the fields. Farmers looked upward hopefully. Villages still depend more on weather than policy.

 

            No manifesto has ever controlled monsoon winds. 

 

            A farmer understands uncertainty better than economists. He plants seeds without guarantees. He spends money without certainty. He survives seasons that would mentally destroy most city people.

 

            Yet every five years, someone arrives in a helicopter to explain development to him.

 

            There is something deeply insulting hidden inside modern politics: people who have never lived village life often speak most confidently about villages.

 

            The bus halted again near a chowk where loudspeakers were tied to electric poles. An upcoming political rally was being announced repeatedly.  The voice on the speaker sounded energetic, victorious, certain.  Meanwhile the electric wires above looked dangerously loose.

 

That is our tragedy sometimes…

even our announcements are stronger than our infrastructure.

 

            Near the chowk, a wall carried layers upon layers of old posters beneath new ones. Torn faces from previous elections peeked out underneath current promises.  History buried under fresh glue.  One generation pasting itself over another.

 

            Suddenly I realized something.

 

            Political posters resemble human ambition itself.  Everyone wants to leave their face somewhere permanent.  Very few leave meaningful work.  Perhaps that is why saints rarely need banners.  Their memory travels quietly through people.

 

Power needs walls.

Character needs hearts.

 

            The bus driver spat tobacco outside the window and laughed at something the conductor said. Life continued casually around these thoughts. That is how reality survives…ordinary routines protecting humans from overthinking.  Otherwise every village would drown in disappointment.

 

            I looked again outside.

 

            A child was drawing with chalk beneath a massive political banner. His house nearby looked incomplete, maybe unfinished for years. Yet he smiled while drawing circles on the ground.

 

            Children still create worlds where adults only create complaints.  Maybe hope is born naturally and later destroyed professionally.

 

            The rain finally started.

 

            Posters fluttered violently under the wind. Some edges loosened. Water ran over smiling printed faces. Ink began melting slightly at corners. 

 

            Rain treats propaganda honestly.

 

            For a few minutes, the village looked almost beautiful. Wet soil darkened. Trees washed themselves clean. Buffaloes stood silently enjoying the weather. Farmers smiled faintly.

 

            And the posters looked weaker.  Nature always reduces human arrogance to temporary cloth.

 

            I remembered another line silently forming inside me:  “The louder a promise becomes, the more carefully one should inspect the silence behind it.”

 

            A man sitting beside me suddenly pointed outside and said, “They will come asking for votes again next month.”

 

            His tone carried neither anger nor excitement.  Only exhaustion.  That tiredness is dangerous for any democracy.  When people stop expecting honesty, corruption no longer needs to hide.

 

            The bus crossed a small government school. Its boundary wall was filled entirely with political advertisements except for one fading line painted years ago:

 

            “Education is the real wealth.”

 

            Ironically, that sentence was the smallest thing on the wall.  Sometimes truth survives only in tiny letters.

 

            I closed my eyes briefly.

 

            In my lifetime, I had seen wars, uniforms, offices, ceremonies, speeches, transfers, retirements, victories, and losses. And one thing slowly became clear:  No nation collapses suddenly.  It slowly learns to tolerate the wrong things.

 

            Broken roads.  Broken systems.  Broken trust.  Broken walls carrying perfect smiles.  That is how decay hides itself…not through disasters, but through normalization.

 

            The rain became heavier now. Water rushed along the roadside carrying plastic cups, wrappers, mud, and fragments of torn political posters into the drains together.

 

            In the end, waste travels collectively.

 

            The bus entered another village where preparations for a political visit were underway despite the storm. Men worked hurriedly in heavy rain, splashing through muddy streets while tying banners and straightening giant cut-outs beside the road.

 

            Fresh paint covered only the visible walls facing the highway. The inner lanes remained broken, drowned in puddles and neglect.

 

            That scene alone explained governance better than newspapers ever could.  Most development happens for visibility.

 

            Reality begins exactly where cameras stop recording.

 

            A few laborers stood barefoot in mud, their clothes soaked completely, struggling to erect smiling political faces against strong winds. One worker held the bamboo pole steady while another climbed dangerously upward in rain just to tighten a loose rope around a leader’s giant banner.

 

            For a moment, the image felt painfully symbolic.   The poor were standing in dirty water so powerful men could appear taller.

 

            Rain kept falling on everyone equally…workers, posters, buffaloes, broken roads, and promises. But only some people had the privilege of staying dry inside speeches.

 

            I kept watching silently through the bus window.

 

            No camera would record those laborers.  No rally speech would mention them.  Tomorrow, when crowds gathered and slogans echoed, people would look upward at the smiling leader…not downward at the men whose exhausted hands had lifted that smile into the sky. 

 

            Perhaps that is the oldest system in the world:  Some people spend their lives holding banners they will never benefit from.

 

            And somewhere inside me, another quiet line appeared:  “History remembers the faces on posters.

Life remembers the hands that tied them in rain.”

 

            That image disturbed me deeply.  The poor often build the stage from which they themselves are ignored. 

 

            For a moment, I wondered whether politicians truly lie more than society itself. Maybe leaders simply become enlarged reflections of public behavior.

 

            After all, ordinary people also make promises they do not keep.

 

            We promise time to parents.  Love to partners.  Honesty to friends.  Values to children.  And loyalty to ourselves.

 

            Perhaps politics is only human weakness wearing white clothes.

 

            That thought softened my anger a little.

 

            The rain slowed.

 

            Evening light spread gently across the wet fields. The posters now looked tired after surviving the storm. Their bright colors had dimmed slightly under mud splashes.

 

            And strangely, they looked more truthful like that.

 

            Imperfection makes things believable.  Maybe that is why villagers trust cracked hands more than polished speeches.

 

            As the bus approached the town, I looked one final time at a broken wall carrying an enormous smiling face.  Below it sat an old cobbler repairing torn shoes quietly.

 

            No crowd around him.  No slogans.No microphone. No promises.  Just work.

 

            And suddenly it felt as if the entire country stood divided between those who repair reality and those who print dreams.

 

            The bus moved ahead.

 

            The wall disappeared behind dust and distance.

 

            But one thought remained seated beside me all the way home:  “Promises become larger exactly where reality becomes smaller.”

Chapter 12 - Funeral

 

12

 

            The bus was unusually noisy that afternoon.

 

            Someone near the front seat was watching comedy videos loudly on his phone. Two college boys were arguing over cricket statistics as if national honour depended on it. A child kept pressing the horn-shaped toy in his hand. The conductor shouted destinations without emotion. Somewhere behind me, a husband and wife were fighting softly about money…the kind of fight that repeats so often it no longer sounds angry, only tired.

 

            And outside the window, life continued its endless procession.  Fields moved backward.  Electric poles marched in disciplined lines.  Dogs slept beneath broken walls.  Women carried fodder on their heads like green mountains.  Nothing seemed extraordinary.

 

            Then the bus slowed slightly near a narrow village road.  I looked outside casually.

 

            A funeral procession was moving ahead. 

 

            Four men carried the bier on their shoulders. White cloth covered the body completely except for the feet. Elderly men walked silently behind it. A few younger men spoke in low voices. One old woman cried openly without caring who watched her grief.

 

            The bus overtook them slowly.  Inside the bus, nobody stopped laughing.  Nobody lowered the volume of their phones.  Nobody paused their arguments.  For a strange moment, two different worlds moved side by side.

 

            Inside the bus…hurry, noise, irritation, entertainment.

 

            Outside the bus…silence, surrender, finality.

 

            And both were travelling on the same road.

 

            I kept looking back through the dusty rear glass until the funeral became smaller and smaller, finally dissolving into sunlight and smoke.  But something remained sitting beside me.

 

            A thought.

 

Maybe life is nothing but this…

one vehicle overtaking another.

 

            One moving toward ambition.  Another moving toward disappearance.  And both believing they still have time.

 

            I do not know why funerals disturb human beings so deeply.

 

            Death itself is not new.

 

            Every person knows it with absolute certainty.

 

            Still, whenever a funeral passes near us, our heart suddenly becomes quieter, as if some invisible teacher has entered the room.  Perhaps because funerals remove all disguises.  A dead body never looks rich.  Never looks powerful.  Never looks famous.  A corpse carries no status.  The cloth covering a king and a labourer finally looks the same.  And maybe that is why human beings quickly look away from funerals.  Not because they fear death.  But because death speaks too honestly. 

 

            The bus accelerated again.

 

            A young boy standing near the door laughed loudly at something on his mobile screen. His laughter was full of life, careless and bright. For a second I envied him.

 

            There is great comfort in forgetting mortality.

            Children are happiest because they do not measure time.  Old people become silent because they do. 

 

            I leaned my head against the window.  The glass was warm from sunlight.  And suddenly an old memory returned to me from my Army days.

 

            Years ago, I had come home on fourteen days' leave.

 

            Whenever I returned to the village, I used to spend evenings at my friend's cloth shop near the market. Like most village shops, it was less a business place and more a discussion centre. People came not only to buy cloth but also to exchange gossip, politics, weather predictions, marriage rumours, and medical advice nobody had asked for.

 

            That evening my friend looked strangely serious.

 

            He lowered his voice and said, “I have to tell you something unbelievable.”

 

            I smiled.

 

            In villages, unbelievable stories usually begin after sunset.  But his face carried no mischief.

 

            He told me about a tailor from our village.

 

            The tailor was a quiet man who sat outside his tiny shop every day with a wooden table and an old chair. He mostly repaired torn clothes. Poor people came to him because he charged little. Some days he earned almost nothing, yet he still sat there from morning till evening, stitching other people’s damaged cloth while his own life remained full of holes.

 

            One morning, he did not open his shop.  By afternoon, news spread that he had died.  My friend went to his house to pay condolences.  Villagers and relatives sat around the body. Women cried softly. Men discussed funeral arrangements. Someone brought firewood. Someone informed distant relatives. Someone calculated the right time for cremation.  The tailor lay still in the middle of the room, covered in white cloth.  My friend also sat among the mourners, waiting for the funeral procession to begin.

 

            And then something happened that nobody there forgot for the rest of their lives.  The dead tailor suddenly moved.  At first, only a hand shifted slightly.  People froze.  Then the body slowly sat upright.  Eyes opened.  Breathing returned.  For a few seconds nobody moved.  Fear spread through the room faster than grief had spread earlier.  Some people screamed.  Some ran outside.  Some began praying.

 

            The tailor himself looked confused, as if he had returned from somewhere very far away.

 

            My friend swore to me that this happened exactly as he described.  At first I laughed in disbelief.  But later I asked my mother. 

 

            She quietly nodded and said, “Yes… it happened.”  And then she added something even stranger.  Exactly one year later…same month, same date…the tailor truly died.

 

            This time he did not return.

 

            After hearing that story years ago, I could never again look at a dead body with complete certainty.  And today, while watching that funeral from the bus window, a strange thought crossed my mind again…What if he suddenly wakes up?  What if the men carrying him panic and drop the bier?  What if death itself sometimes changes its decision halfway?

 

            Human beings know so little.  Doctors explain death medically.  Priests explain it spiritually.  Philosophers explain it intellectually.

 

But the truth is…

nobody explains it completely.

 

            Death remains the oldest mystery still undefeated.

            Outside, the road curved beside a canal.  The funeral procession disappeared toward another village path. 

 

            But my thoughts continued walking with it.

                       

            I noticed something strange about human life.  People prepare for everything except death.  We prepare for exams.  For careers.  For weddings.  For children.  For retirement.  For guests.  For festivals. For disasters.

 

            But almost nobody prepares emotionally for the certainty that one day the world will continue exactly the same without them.

 

            The buses will still run.  Tea shops will still open.  Children will still laugh.  Arguments will still happen.  And someone else will sit near this same window seat looking outside.  There is both sadness and beauty in this realization.

 

Sadness…

because we are temporary.

 

Beauty…

because life itself is permanent beyond us.

 

Perhaps wisdom begins when a person understands he is not the centre of existence.

 

            The bus stopped near a roadside tea stall.  Several passengers stepped down impatiently.  One man immediately checked his phone signal before even ordering tea.  Another complained about the bus delay as though time personally belonged to him.  An old farmer quietly drank tea while staring at the sky. 

 

            I watched everyone carefully.  And a strange sentence formed silently inside me:

 

            “Human beings live as if death happens only to neighbours.”

 

            Maybe that is why funerals shock us.  Not because someone died.  But because for one uncomfortable second, we accidentally imagine ourselves in that position.

 

            I remembered Army life again.

 

            Soldiers understand death differently.  Not necessarily more bravely…just more practically.  When you wear a uniform long enough, you stop imagining life as permanent property. You begin seeing it as temporary duty.

 

            I had seen men laughing at night and receiving tragic news by morning.  I had seen letters arrive too late.  I had seen unfinished conversations become permanent.  And perhaps that is why ordinary moments now affect me deeply.

 

            A bus journey.  A funeral crossing.  An old tailor waking from death.  These things may sound small to the world.  But sometimes truth hides inside ordinary scenes because extraordinary truths cannot survive noisy places.

 

            The bus resumed its journey. 

 

            Sunlight had softened now.  Fields glowed golden.  Buffaloes stood half-submerged in ponds like silent philosophers.  A boy flew a kite from a rooftop.  An elderly man cycled slowly with milk cans hanging from both sides.  Everything looked painfully alive.

 

            And maybe that is why death exists…to make life visible.  Without endings, nothing would feel precious.  If human beings lived forever, perhaps nobody would value evenings, parents, friendships, or love.

 

            Mortality gives urgency to affection.

 

            A limited number of sunsets makes sunsets meaningful.

 

            I looked again at the empty road where the funeral had vanished.  Somewhere ahead, smoke from a cremation ground would eventually rise into the sky.  And tomorrow, the same road would again carry weddings, tractors, school buses, vegetable carts, political rallies, lovers on motorcycles, and ambulances.

 

            Life and death never stop sharing roads.  Only human beings pretend they are separate destinations. 

 

            The conductor came asking for tickets.  I handed him money absentmindedly.

 

            For a second I wondered…How strange it is that even while travelling toward death, humans still argue over seat numbers.  Still compare salaries.  Still feel jealous.  Still postpone forgiveness.  Still wait for the “right time” to love people openly.  As if eternity has been officially guaranteed.

 

            Perhaps maturity is not becoming serious.  Perhaps maturity is simply understanding fragility.

 

            The bus entered another town.  Traffic increased.  Horns returned.  Noise swallowed silence again.  But inside me, the funeral procession still walked slowly.

 

            And one final thought settled quietly in my heart:  “Life and death travel on the same road, only at different speeds.”

 

            Some people are overtaking.  Some are being overtaken.  But all are moving in the same direction eventually.

 

            The difference is only this…

 

            Most travellers still believe the journey is long.