(This poem is dedicated to a lonely soul who walked along the Mumbai streets and translated those visuals into words for me)
A traffic jam
That looks at its face
On the glass facade of a mall
Paramilitary forces marching along
To save people from anxieties
Irony plays the final farce
So that people could feel good
An enigmatic smile hangs in the air
An old lady who sells paintings
Hide her tears of a hurting memory
Looks at the sea with vacant eyes
People hurry to get back home
As if expecting an impending storm
Sea remains calm with it waves
Washing a hurt faith standing alone
But who sees it all? Fear has taken the toll.
A weary sun calls pack up and asks the stars
To do the dusting of the floor
Trouble loving youths celebrate
The news of king’s death with
Unreleased anger, pride and ignorance
Rebellion pasted on branded clothes
They swish past in chauffer driven palaces
Two eagles, the eternal lovers of sky, fly around
Birds flap their wings to distant homes
Unintentionally chronicling the life of a city
Parked brooms of witches on the way
As if a summit of sorcery already in full swing
A slow performer of love prefers a fast car on the road
For he satisfies everything with screeching of tyres
Eternal weavers of time weave silken clothes
Of life and display in glassed cages as tagged desires
Even the traffic constable’s whistle blows out
A collective fear that pervades the city right here
A religion once travelled to foreign shores
Fearing condemnation and death reappears
From nowhere to calm the people with chimes and choirs
Against the forced peace there comes a torrent of traffic
As if there were the wild beasts chased by chopper wings
The temple of desires calls people to shop
Like an old prostitute beckoning the wanton youths
With her artificial smiles and abominable lip gloss
Here one could wear a condom to a car or the other way round
And call it a desire machine and throb it to death
A fat god, protected by a fat police man and both of them
Look for protection from a fat crowd which has lost its mind
Against death and life’s ultimate games of hide and seek
The sea remains there along the city, a bit bored
With eateries selling curious appetites
Life gets stuck between jammed vehicles
Downed shutters and dimming dreams
A traffic light tells everyone the story of
And adventurer lost his way into the state’s guest house
Like the chair once shelved the bottom of a famous cheat
It glows in a flimsy glory and counts its life down
It hopes the king would pass by and would wink
Only to be seen by its three lights at once
Health seeking souls walk in their branded soles
Pacing up to the rhythm of music and heaving gossips
‘The town side of the maximum city is towny today
Jazz by the bay is no spazz by the bay’ someone sings
Along the girdle of water at the sexy mid rift of city
People still looking for dreams that fly by evening breeze
Celebrating the death of a king, a chariot passes by
All decked up in lights, but without horse or a charioteer
Death sprinkles nothingness from a disused fountain
With agonized gods doing marble copulation
I am sure the paintings of death and pestilence
Will be on display today and for all coming days.
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