Oh! Calcutta

Calcutta was a dream, and is a dream
To the teeming millions in the countryside.
A dream in stones – the Victoria Memorial,
Captured in plastic jerry-cans on the foot-path

The East India Company of the yesteryears
Built the city, the cathedrals, and the docks.
They left some customs on sitting rooms
Of Ballygunge and Tollygunge areas.

The Howrah Bridge is a world of its own
Where in thousands dwell, and young men wrestle.
The Alipore Zoo is a weekend family centre,
Depending on which side of the fence you stand.

In conditioned luxury, few are chauffer driven
For millions, life hangs by three fingers.
Lunch-packs under their arms, the world stands
And waits in the queue for the 420 bus.

The executive with his VIP brief-case;
The school boy loaded with his tuitions and text-books
The daily laborers push-cart their lives day through night
When beggars plead, and lepers chase flies.

Sorry Kipling, here East meets West in a nightmarish union
And history and science jostle for the first place.
For all this and much more, I love you Calcutta,
City of my birth, and centre of my civilization

Stand Back

No favors here,

When you take my hand

For a sense of direction

Or even just cold comfort.

No favors here –

Just a smile perhaps;

But you laugh

At the proverbial fool.

You laugh so loud,

I’m shocked awake to learn

Always keep my hands to myself.

the mad man by your car window

He sits by the wayside

The tide has washed

Away his mind

Be kind and don’t ask

What is it that he wants…

If he could just step back in time

The pantomime that plays inside his head

Is not his.

Strange dull ache is all that he feels

Because all that remain

With him are flash-cuts from

An Oliver Stone film

Which, has nothing to do

With what he felt, saw, touched or sensed

Or the life he once had,

Or did he have a life at all,

He doesn’t know.

 

He cringes in the dark

Like a rat that knows his end is near

But he wished he only knew

Who he was, what he was

And put aside his fear

Of dying a nameless death

On the side-walk

And get collected by the cops

With a toe-tag that only gives a count

Like the endless white screams

The mindless dreams

That he hears every night, every time

The sun begins to fade.

His little tattered blanket

Keeps him warm, dry,

And sometimes acts as a shield

From the prying world

When he begins to eat his only meal

Of half-eaten fruit thrown at the dogs

Which he grabbed for hunger’s sake.

He wishes someone would throw

His memory back to him

So that he could understand

The reason behind his pain.

 

Someone once said that

He carried a picture of a girl

Faded, now dirty

Like the old t-shirt which he wears

says Levi’s 501.

There was a time when he stared

At passing cars

Trying to match the picture to a face.

Till all that remained

Was a blur of wheels

Burnt into the depths of his mind

Where now,

The wheels have long stopped turning,

And it’s just a roar that remains...