In which I start going crazy.

A city lit up, and you'd never know because all you'd see would be flashes of darkness and light. Mostly light. You could squat on a pastel-coloured wall, or on a computer screen, but soon you'd realise that the real fun's outside, and off you'd go. A series of lines melting into a blurry sun, only there'd be a lot of fireballs around. And how alluring they'd be. And if you could shake yourself out of your daze, maybe you'd look beyond the light.

Maybe you'd see empty streets and packed pavements, shampooed heads rushing through from point A to point B. Maybe you'd see girls in uncomfortable dresses, teetering around on heels that will probably be packed away in paper boxes till next year. Lipstick and grime. Perfume and paan. Maybe you'd see cranky kids begging for icecream, and maybe you'd see men wiping their faces with dirty handkerchiefs. Maybe you'd see structures that looked different from the cement boxes along the roads - more luminiscent somehow, and assuredly stranger. Maybe you'd fly in and smell smoke and paint, and maybe you'd alight on a regal nose. You'd see gold and more gold, gold brocade and gold dust, golden light even. Maybe you'd crawl over an imperious eyelid, lingering on a stray eyelash, a brushstroke gone wrong. Maybe you'd see painted plaster toenails and glinting cardboard weapons. Maybe you'd see sudden flashes from cameras till you got tired of them, and then you'd fly away outside.

Maybe you'd see squealing toddlers on rides with garish dragons painted everywhere. Or lightbulbs hanging over greasy stacks of food. Perhaps a seller of shiny whistles, perhaps an advertisement hoarding. But still there'd be lights calling out to you. And try as you might, you wouldn't be able to ignore them.

Light reflecting off everything, faces and fabrics and glass and tinfoil. Light you can't get rid of and light you can't handle, different categories of light merging into something so exciting and so overwhelming that you'd pause for a breath, and sink onto a stray hand. Crawl about a little. Perhaps take a little bite. It couldn't possibly do any harm, it's just a hand, when splat! You'd be crushed to a little green insect-shaped stain on a sweaty forearm.

Perhaps you'd catch a last glimpse of something through the hair and the stickiness, a chance glimpse of a bangle, or a buckle, or a palm freshly painted with fake henna. In your two hours of living, maybe you'd see everything.

Maybe you'd see nothing.

If you were a pujo-poka, what would you see?