The Factory
From a few meters away, the factory seemed like a citadel, guarding a civilization of its own. The sky-scraping turrets were the chimneys of the factory releasing putrid brown fumes that diffused to form a blanket over my head. As I came near to the factory, I could hear the noises of machines whirring, the piercing vibrations of drill bits and the fetor of coal burning. Metallic outlook of the factory echoed with the metals being welded and smoldered inside; the vastness and complexity of the structure implied the fine expertise of the architect.
The entry was barred with iron gates and the little lattice windows for ventilation gaped forlorn, the wires, ducts and pipes ran cheek by jowl- intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like an archway of a church! However, I entered by the back door, walking across the rows of tortured waste parts dumped for incineration.
Proceeding into a completely alien world, devoid of human touch, I could only see giant monstrous machines rumbling! Numerous yellow-green fluorescent glowing buttons controlling the whole system and several detectors constantly ticking right and left resembled eyes, noses and ears of the gray machines. Moving further, I observed a cubicle which beheld an advanced equipment for cutting- a laser beam slicer! One sleek beam of red light through a glass slab and the next moment it was precisely severed into two equal parts! The powers of the famous robots in the ‘Transformer’ movies which only appeared in my imaginations were now in front of me!
The army of boilers in front of me reminded me of war tankers used to shoot canons. Bubbling froth rising over me like a growling volcano almost ready to erupt scared me for a second and the next moment the gush of air flowing in the ducts distracted me! Surrounded by hostile man-made machines, I felt lonely, the lack of human touch surfaced! I fell into a reverie…
Technology has wrapped humans in a veil of lethargy; the beads of perspiration trickling down the forehead of furious laborers was missing. Their sepia-toned pupils mirrored with the passion of flames climbing upwards like etiolated stems trying to snake up their way to catch a ray of sunlight! Faces constantly abrased with the smoke particles and the malevolent heat lacerating the skin like the swords being carved in the boiling kiln makes the factory alive and makes it thrive; programmed machines moving in a robotic pattern monotonously, lacking expressions and emotions kills the essence of a factory.
A factory is for arms and ardor sizzling within the free souls of humans, not for controlled and instructed machines. Thus, these robots didn’t catch my attention anymore, I longed to see a worker- in his element, sawing, carving, soldering and mending!