The baby anklets

My little niece's feet that used to jingle
for all the hours of the day,
now unclad
and naked,
those soft ankles
followed
by silent
footsteps.

Commencement

In a foggy morning of January,
As she walks on the white snow, 
a trail of 
cold 
red 
beauty spots marks the path she took for the first time.
She knows not why her stomach hurts every full moon
Nor why she is frequently asked to halt at every station.
She
 is kept in isolation,


secluded from the rest of her family,
like in an island in ‘Cast Away’.
Her mind is clogged with doubts since the time she’s been barred from the courtyard.
But the little girl dare not sit still for a few seconds to wonder,
Not even once in a blue moon.
 

Eventuality

I was like a man split into half; a chopped onion, ready to be fried.
My head spun and my back ached while I lay in my bed all day.
Every morning, I was greeted by Miss Hope who got castrated recently.

Now the torment has been blown away by an erratic wind and 
I walk around wearing a pair of yellow and red slippers in the monsoon rain.







 

The man with the woman in a sari

We see a man 
waving at the couple who sits opposite to us,
as the train starts drifting from the platform.

The man’s hair has turned all white;
the woman still has some strands left.
She has a red round bindi stuck between her eyebrows,
a few red bangles stuck between two yellow bangles.
She rests her elbow on the window sill,
forgetting about her weakening body,
dreaming about meeting her daughter in the next 24 hours.

A few droplets streaming down the window glass, hang on the edge,
swinging and swaying with the rhythm of the train,
ready to fall any moment, bless the rain!

We sit silently,
Listening to Beady Eye’s ‘blue moon’, PJ’s ‘yellow ledbetter’, 
Radiohead’s ‘house of cards’, ‘no surprises’ one after another.
One after another, the songs creep into my left ear and his right ear,
while I muse, staring outside the window,
thinking about writing a new poem about this couple.
We shall reach their age years from now eventually.

The big rocks remain fixed beside the ponds outside.
The green and smoky weather feeds us all.
But the fresh foul smell of the city’s sewage still lingers inside the train.