India: A Wounded Civilization - pg. 21

And during the rest of that day's drive North Bihar repeated itself: the gray-black hut clusters; the green paddy fields whose luxuriance and springlike freshness can deceive earth-scanners and cause yields to be overestimated; the bare-backed men carrying loads on either end of a long limber pole balanced on their shoulders, the strain showing in their brisk, mincing walk, which gave them a curious feminine daintiness; the overcrowded buses at dusty towns that were shack settlements; the children wallowing in the muddy ponds in the heat of the day, catching fish; the children and men pounding soaked jute stalks to extract fiber which, loaded on bullock carts, looked like thick plaited blond tresses, immensely rich. Thoughts of human possibilities dwindled; North Bihar seemed to have become the world, capable of the life that was seem.