Shahar Se Das Kilometer

Ten kilometers from the city is the world that exists, neither a part of the citys imagination nor its dreams. It is full of its own sorrows, its joys, its greenery, and its droughts. There are fields, landsome barren, some plateaus, some fertileand struggling with them, breathing their air are people, their cows, buffaloes, and dogs; and what connects them all are their relationships, quarrels, complaints, and love! This world, just ten kilometers beyond the city, is the world of our country, independent of our city civilization, which continues to tumble and rise in its attempts to establish itself in the many currents of development. Some faces of this struggle, and their stories, can be found floating on their wheels and wings even in the heart of the city. This novel opens with the journey of a pair of feet, immersed in the love of a bicycle, starting from the center of the city and extending ten kilometers beyond it. This city is Bhopal. The city interprets the ups and downs of the hills in the sober language of roads. People live in temporary huts along the roadside, engaged in various jobs who, despite living in the cities, preserve their identity outside the city. The bicycle keeps moving, recording everyones well-being. A womans bicycle, with its own history, involuntarily takes her away from the hustle and bustle of the city, to the fields, to those parts of the city where the city exists but has none of its charm. The city, encroaching on the borders of the villages, treats those who have fled the poverty of the villages to become part of the city.