Charminar

When the winding stairs to history

Suck people like blind men into it

I could feel the heaving and laughter

Of those girls who climb ahead of me,

Along with the smell of their oiled hairs;

Down there, with the sugar canes

Thirst also gets crushed and squeezed.

Atop the four minarets as usual

Pigeons and people talk about love

And complaints; on the walls

Where graffiti is banned, there lay dead

Names and endless obscenity

Burqa clad streets pierced by gazes

Mangos ripened by chemical agents

Yellowed beliefs in beautiful arrays

Like the players drowned in concentration

On either side of a chess board

Religions, beggars and merchants

Climbing up to the history is easier

While coming down muscles pull at thighs

Ahead of me still I hear the panting and laughter

Of the girls who carry oil smell in their hairs

All the monuments swallowed by cities

Are like this only; do not slip while coming down.