The sun rises over the emerald fields surrounding the village. It is a plain, small, inconsequential village. The fields around are more colourful than the sun-bleached clothes of the inhabitants. The clothes had once been livelier, but the sun, the sweat and the poverty have slowly but surely taken the sheen off till all the colours appear to be of the same dull hue.
There is a railway line passing through the fields, added almost as an afterthought by some functionary in the government. Other than the one tractor in the village, the railway line is the only connection that the village has with any sort of modern technology. The line is almost as inconsequential as the village itself, which does not even have access to a pukka road let alone to a railway station.
A distant rumble approaches the village. The poultry and livestock scatters in alarm. In the village, all activity ceases and heads turn to the direction of the disturbance. It is nothing new, yet life comes to a standstill as the rumble closes in.
The train approaches and then passes the village, as always. Several eyes peer from within the iron coaches at the scene outside.
Some child waves out from the train, before its worried mother pulls the hand back in with a reprimand. Someone waves back from the village. Two lives brush even as hundreds pass each other by.
The noise recedes as the train leaves the village behind. The train will meet the village again. The people in it will probably not. The day is still young and there is lots to be done. The villagers turn back to their work. The herds return to their grazing spots. The sun still shines over the emerald fields.
Life goes on.
