Payyambalam Beach Road. Known to the early morning runners, bikers and walkers as a place of solace among kindred spirits finding peace in the morning chill; known to the evening “let’s go for a drive” crowd as the end of the busy road, only to loop back around before grabbing a bite to eat, and maybe even a ballon for their screaming 3 year old.

Between the black and the white; between the still haze of the early morning fog and the blur of the brightly lit evening bustle; between the 2 worlds that seem so starkly different; between the extremes lies the gray emptiness of the mid afternoon sun beating down without mercy on the lone runner’s neck.

More importantly, it’s the gray coloring the secret lovers trying to hide from society that doesn’t condone. It’s the gray of drivers with L stickers* on their cars, knowing that the road is spread wide in front of them with nothing to dodge other than the lovers who are intentionally hidden… and perhaps that one lone runner who really shouldn’t be there in the first place.

This gray doesn’t belong to the runner. The gray belongs to those that blur between the black and the white.

• *In Kerala, drivers with learner’s permits generally have a big red L sticker on their car