Around January, sometimes December starts the fall of something beautiful, penetrating and powerful. The fall of snow at first as it slowly drifts from the heaven above and embraces the warm ground. Soon it starts to blanket the earth as if putting it to sleep; people hustle home hoping to flee the peak of the storm. Roads are cloaked, and so are the sidewalks; there is no distinction. The snow continues to fall unchallenged in pursuit of something that no one knows. It swirls under the tree trunks, weights down the naked branches, trying to clothe everything in white. It succeeds for some time.
Tree branches fill with snow like vanilla icing on a chocolate cake, and the roofs resemble snowcapped mountains until the salt spreaders, snow blowers, snow plows cut through the snow breaking the uniformity. The pureness is gone with mounds of dirt mixed with the snow lying beside the sidewalks, the specks of tar that start to materialize on top, the brown steps of children that surface near the houses. Hindu Mythology talks of a time when all of humanity was noble, upright and pure. Soon comes a time when the majority of people were noble, upright and pure but specs of corruption are seen. Then comes a time when there are people with high morals and people with wickedness. At last, comes a time when morals are just clothes to put on but inside us is something very dark.
We have reached that time. We want those who represent us to be reliable, just, and honest. We want our politicians to be filled with morals. We want them to be idols. Instead, they cloak themselves with morals, make themselves pure but eventually out comes the specks, sometimes in the form of dynasty politics or through religious bias. It is only a matter of time until there are piles of dirt ridden black snow lying on the sidewalks.
– Avakash Bhat