Geography Lesson

Can you imagine what your city would look like if you saw it from ten thousand feet above the ground? Neatly planned and perfect in proportion like a geometric design, it would strike you as something very different from what it actually is while yo are in the thick of it.

Here is a poet's description of just such a view of the city, ant some questions that come to his mind.

When the jet sprang into the sky, 

it was clear why the city

had developed the way it had. 

seeing it scaled six inches to the mile.

There seemed an inevitability 

about what on ground had looked haphazard.

unplanned and without style 

When the jet sprang into the sky.

When the jet reached ten thousand feet.

it was clear why the country 

had cities where the rivers ran

and why the valleys were populated.

The logic of geography-- 

that land and water attracted man--

was clearly delineated 

When the jet reached ten thousand

feet. 

When the jet rose six miles high.

it was clear the earth was round 

and that it had more sea than land.

But it was difficult to understand 

that the men on the earth found 

causes to hate each other, to build 

walls across cities and to kill. 

From that height, it was not clear why.

WRITER :- ZULFIKAR GHOSE