On my way back from Jhansi
I stopped at a roadside café
one of those quiet rural halts
where the highway loosens its breath
and travellers pause without reason.
I asked for coffee.
They had none.
So I watched the tea instead
brewed in a vast aluminium kettle
where it boiled and rose
and boiled again,
slowly turning
the colour of wet earth.
I almost left.
But the morning sun was kind,
and a soft drowsiness
rested on my shoulders
like the dust of long roads,
so I waited
for that tea in its earthen cup.
“Biscuits?” I asked.
A lone Parle-G arrived,
faithful companion
to countless journeys.
Outside, truck drivers reclined on charpoys,
their slow glances drifting toward me
like idle smoke in the heat.
Something in the air shifted.
A traveller’s instinct whispered
move on.
Just then someone called out,
“Madam, have some buttermilk!”
But stray stories of highway tempers,
of sudden quarrels on lonely roads,
fluttered through my thoughts
like restless birds.
I rose quickly,
walked to my car,
and turned the key.
The engine stirred to life.
Then
a knock on my window.
My heart stumbled.
From behind the glass I asked softly,
“Kya hua?”
The man smiled, almost amused.
“Madam
you haven’t paid your bill.”
Relief arrived
like cool shade after heat.
I laughed,
handed him a note
“Keep the change.”
Soon I was back among the swift cars
of the Yamuna Expressway,
watching the miles fall away behind me.
The roadside tales of danger
faded into distance,
and somewhere along that bright ribbon of road
I found myself singing
All the way home
( c) Runa Srivastava 2026
Image Alan L Boles
