the autorickshaw driver who quoted Kabir at me

I was complaining about traffic. I was doing it quietly, mostly to myself, but he heard. He looked at me in the rearview mirror — those small rearview mirrors they have, angled so drivers can watch passengers be miserable — and said, "Kabir ne kya kaha tha." I waited. "Maati kahe kumhar se, tu kya roonde mohe. Ik din aisa aayega, main roondungi tohe." The clay says to the potter: why do you knead me? One day I will knead you too. I didn't say anything. What do you say to that? We were at Moolchand flyover, which is one of the less poetic spots in Delhi, surrounded by concrete and exhaust. He found Kabir here. He didn't say anything else either. We sat in the traffic, which moved eventually the way Delhi traffic does: all at once, for no apparent reason. He dropped me at my corner, I paid, he left. I've thought about that line many times since. Not about traffic. About the other thing it's about.