Posters, promises and the piles beneath

EVERY morning, as my cab rattles and wheezes its way toward my workplace, I pass by a slideshow of surreal sights that would give Salvador Dalí a run for his moustache. The city unfolds like theatre of the absurd — its acts patched with promises, punctuated with potholes and perfumed occasionally by paan spit.

We halt, as usual, at the red light near Plaza Mall. That’s where I see it again — the massive flex banner with a smug politician flashing the victory sign, as if he’d heroically vanquished a flyover or personally handpicked every plastic wrapper off the street. The slogan screams, ‘Swachh Bharat, Sundar Bharat!’ in bold, bubblegum-pink letters. And right beneath that sugary shoutout lies a garbage garrison — vegetable peels, polythene puddings, torn textbooks and leftovers from yesterday’s campaign. A bored cow, clearly unimpressed by the development discourse, munches meditatively on what I suspect is a discarded electoral leaflet.

A few metres away, past the chai stall with its eternally boiling black potion (better known as ‘special kadak’), floats another poster — this one more glamorous. A porcelain-skinned model in chiffon stares wistfully into smoggy nothingness, her lips parted like she’s about to recite a poem on peace. The caption reads, ‘Breathe Elegance’. Right below, a gurgling drain has its own interpretation of fragrance. A defiant dog splashes through the slime with the composure of a Vogue model on a rainy runway.

The paradox is pungent, poetic even. A city that whispers dreams through high-definition hoardings while choking on its low-tech truths.

Further down, a bright board boasts: 'Transform Yourself in 30 Days!' It hangs crookedly on a mildew-coated wall that’s clearly beyond any transformation. In peeling paint, someone has scribbled: 'Yeh deewar bhi thak gayi hai.' The wall, like the city’s conscience, seems exhausted. A few steps away, an old woman warms her wrinkled hands over a flame fed by plastic and old cardboard — her version of daily transformation.

At another turn, a cheery hoarding for a wellness app shows two digitally airbrushed faces meditating beneath digital mountains. Peace and positivity, it promises. But just below it, a frayed ‘temperscape’ unfolds: a vendor and a rickshaw-puller hurling hot insults over cold change. Nearby, a child sleeps under a bench, curled up like a comma in a sentence the city has long abandoned.

Some sights jolt you, others jest. Once, I spotted a flex for ‘100% Organic Produce’ flapping above a dumpster buffet for rats. A crow cawed sarcastically as if it, too, had given up on quality control.

Then there’s that mural near the Film City Street, painted by hopeful hands — two children flying kites over gleaming gardens and spotless streets. Below it, real kids tug at paper planes fashioned from old newspapers, beside an open manhole that burps like a grumpy old man protesting the lies floating above him.

These are the juxtapositions that city life offers freely — irony without invitation, satire served street-style. Billboards brag. Roads retaliate. And we, the daily drifters, float somewhere in between — half amused, half anaesthetised.

The cab lurches to its final halt. I pay the fare, nod at the driver and step out onto the office footpath — carefully avoiding a puddle of something unnameable. One last glance at the smiling politician still ruling over his kingdom of compost.

Cities don’t lie. Their truths just wear makeup. And often, the prettiest posters conceal the most pungent paradoxes — proof that in urban India, fiction is flex-mounted and truth lies, quite literally, beneath our feet.