You Are not Alone

In your silence I could hear

The hissing of a pressure cooker

Shrieking of onions, potatoes and garlic

Sizzling of mustard in the boiling oil

A creative ensemble breaks into pieces

By the clattering of utensils in a hollow wash basin.

Each finger of yours is sliced by a memory

Each strand of hair split by a reasoning

Each pore of your body thrives in rebellion

But in silence you smother them into oblivion

While you walk to the station for a bus

That never comes and takes to you a place

Where nobody resides except hopes and dreams,

Ties of love beckon you back to the slavery of home.

The tip of your saree puffs up in pride as the wind blows

Like a lonely protestor leads a pack of spirits

Along a street that burns in asphalt hell

Still you walk into the scenes painted by clouds

When you sit alone tired and harassed

By work, time, thoughts and the utter loneliness

In the corner of a metro coach

Between your eyelids and dreams

There flutters the wings of a butterfly

That could explode a volcano of change

But you don’t wish to explode

You scramble through your vanity bag

Find out your comb, clips and tickets

With trained movements you tie up your hair

Like a dancer does her choreographed moves

You come back to a world where you don’t belong

Into the deafening noise of disparage and hate

Go back to your desk, to your dishes to the unwashed clothes

And finally to the starched and ironed hopes of tomorrow.

Before the fingers of hatred touch you

You surrender to sleep, to the lullabies of night

And in sleep you play with a host of angels

Whom you had left eons back in the middle of a school ground

And one day you would realize

When you do the dishes, listen to the harangues

When you cook, when you cut vegetables

When you stare back at the gazes of idlers

When the burners burn not for cooking

You would realize the time has come to move

And when you come down you would see

That you are not alone

And the volcanoes have erupted all along.