There are sidewalks in this place, like any other place. Even in my village back home, there are sidewalks. In the paddy field where the embankment provides people with a narrow and wet piece of land to walk on, one can choose to step into the paddy field and walk along the embankment, turning the field into a vast sidewalk. In the monsoon, the sidewalk turns into a puddle with creepy crawlies and tortoises and fishes and small plants and moss. Here in this place the sidewalks are defined by using a different material. The road is asphalt and the sidewalk is concrete. Where there are missing slabs of concrete, new slabs are placed which makes the sidewalk a giant chessboard with old and broken squares interspersed with new and shiny and slippery squares. Walking on these shiny squares requires a firm grip on the ground, which my sandals often lack. So I slip on these shiny squares while the old ones treat me more kindly by offering to my soles a rough surface. In some places there is no way of skipping the shiny bits because there are two consecutive slabs which had been replaced, thus demanding that people place their feet on smooth, slippery ground. In some places the sidewalk is raised a little off the road, placing the walkers on a different level from the motorway. That is one way of grouping people here. The walkers and the drivers. The slightly raised sidewalk also provides people with a tiny bit of potential energy which they can use to stride off the sidewalk into the road, like a bollywood hero. If things go well, then there would be no vehicles on the road and the stride can extend into a tiny jog that makes you look more active and animated than you are. The sidewalk is also a place where your upper body faces other upper bodies and then the patriarchy and gender unequality comes in and makes you conscious of not turning your chest too much towards women and men larger than you. The sidedwalk asks us all to conform our bodies into proper shapes and postures. If it is raining, then we take part in an elaborate dance of moving our umbrellas to the side so that the Other can move with their umbrella without getting entangled with our umbrellas. Timid people move the umbrella to the side well in advance whereas people who are either lost in their world or trying to act tough forget that they are on stage and bump their umbrellas into the Other’s.