She....

At 6.45 in the morning the Rajagiriya Welikada Junction is a busy place. Vehicles make their way to the busy A 40 route reaching Colombo  or the suburbs or drive through the intersection  towards Nawala. The new overhead bridge looms over the hundreds of vehicles teeming beneath it, horns blaring, private bus drivers race each other to be first to reach the next bus stop. Motor cyclists and three wheelers deftly cut through the traffic to be first to line up at the intersection in a race for life itself.  A lone policeman valiently try to bring some order to this chaos.

I wait impatiently for the policeman to wave me through and watch the hundreds of commuters each preoccupied with thoughts of the day ahead. Some gaze vacantly out of buses and vans. Couples, so obviously married for donkeys ears, seated together in their vehicles, glumly munching on sandwiches and gazing anywhere and everywhere other than at each other.

Everything just as it should be and expected to be at 6.45 on a busy weekday at the Rajagiriya,Welikada Junction.

Exceptfor this one incongruous sight.

My mind first engaged as I began to notice the gaze of commuters  facing different directions  come alive and focus in one direction.  I followed their gaze to a woman standing, somehow conspiciously alone under the King  Parakramabahu VI statue. Obviously waiting to cross the road but seemingly not in any hurry even though the vehicles were not moving and  cross she could if she wanted.
She just simply stood there... nonchalant, at ease and unhurried. A conspicuous figure, dressed to attract and scintillate and possibly would have in  the shadows of the night, but in the glaring white light of the day rather threadbare and frayed at the edges.  The wearer too looked as though she was hardly in any mood to either attract or scintillate. Just quietly standing in the middle of the intersection under the scrutiny of a thousand eyes.  But, she was not alone . At her feet with its face gently and lovingly resting on her sligtly bent protruding knee was a street dog,  She was  rubbing its head, tugging and tickling behind its ears. The dog was nuzzling closer and closer to her seeking her warmth and friendship and she in turn giving it all the love it sought.

 A street dog and woman unabashedly seeking and receiving from each other love and comfort. Oblivious of the most incongruous of places and the most ungoldy hour or of the thousand gazes  frozen  on them. Each gaze seeing what it wants to see  or  capable of seeing.

 Then she moves,  across the road, through the motor cycles, three wheelers and busses. The dog at her heels. Vehicles slowly come to life, I drive away...its a long day ahead, but this moment stays in my mind.

This sliver of a moment before she ends a long night and those around her begin  a long day.