Empty Lands

I always have a fascination for vast empty lands spread before our eyes with their end nowhere to be seen. This fascination of such lands comes from childhood. When I used to go to my native place we used to visit 'Vayakaadu' very frequently. Its just the land after cultivation with patches of dry grasses stick out. The land split into equal squares. We wont see the end of the land it will go on and on. We can see the silhouttes of few palm trees standing tall very far. Evening times we used to see a goods train (this was a name given by us for all trains withold type steam engines) going from left to right farther away from the palm trees. Only the sound of the train could be heard (shiku puku shiku puku). We will be asking where does it go, are there people living beyond the track? One day we should walk till that point... We never walked till that point we will loose interest somewhere in the middle.

When going by long distance train I cannot stop admiring the vast empty 'vayakaadus' spread on both sides. If we keep our cheek on the window frame and observe the land we can see the land rotating. It used to be a very fantastic sight mixed with the distinctive scent of our southern railway. Thats a different story altogether.

This fascination towards such places led to enjoy movies which were taken in such places. Especially I am very fond of western movies mainly because of the locale. Some movies I started collecting just for the locales. To name some movies in which I enjoyed the locales Tremors, Thunderheart, Broken Arrow, Inferno, Mad Max, Gods must be Crazy, Forrest Gump, Cast Away (The last scene) etc. There was this MGR movie where he deals with 6 deadly criminals this movies locale will also be good. Many old Jainshankar movies will happen in such locales.

I enjoyed the book 'A Painted House' just for the location where the entire story happens. It's a beautiful book by John Grisham.

The fascination led me to write few short stories in which the location would be vast empty lands.

This fascination still continues, it just goes on and on as the vast empty lands with no end.