Ah, the sweet scent of development! A road was promised, and suddenly, with them, houses sprout like mushrooms after the rain—some in places no sane builder would choose. Roads do not merely connect places but awaken sudden architectural miracles. The moment whispers of development spread, houses materialize as if summoned by the mere promise of asphalt. And yet, they are not homes, not shelters, but hollow monuments standing in silent anticipation.
No windows to let in the morning light, no doors to welcome a family home, just empty shells with secrets built into their walls. To step inside is a trick—a puzzle waiting to be solved, a hidden mechanism, a quiet transaction. These structures do not belong to those who dream of a place to call home; they belong to the game itself, to the players who understand that sometimes, a house is more valuable as an obstacle than as a dwelling.
Are they resting spots for weary travelers? Unlikely. Are they placeholders for something greater? Possibly. Or are they bargaining chips in the grand economy of demolition—where to tear down is to cash in, and to build is merely a step toward destruction? Development, they say, brings change. But in the shadows of these roadside husks, one wonders—who is truly developing, and who is merely playing the game?
Like actors on a stage, they wait for their cue—the arrival of bulldozers, as they always do, the negotiation of rates, the quiet understanding that to build is merely to prepare for a payday. This is not a village expanding; this is a strategy unfolding. And when the dust settles, the road will remain, the houses will be gone, and the cycle will repeat—where progress is measured not in what is built, but in what is cashed in and cleared away, where development is just another stage for human ingenuity, greed, and pretense.
Subongtsungba Longkumer