CAROL D’SOUZA

Plotting

Guttural instinct rumbles as I motor through trying to hold both — foreground and background, detail and canvas — in focus simultaneously. The disciplining curve of the centripetal force attempts to strong-arm. My map is not made to pliable scale. Coming upon a self-assured shoulder of a well-trodden path posed to look natural, my thoughts turn to joy — the whelp yapping in my heart. I remind myself to be wary of the advertising green of deciduous trees that are bare in winter. Trying to plot a three-dimensional life from a two-dimensional map, you would say, is a losing battle to begin with.

Carol D’Souza lives in Chennai.