A VEIL OF OBSCURITY

Hyperboloids of light lit up a new city—

Strangeness engulfed the scene:

They did not know each other.

Rotten smell of stale chapattis

Flowered like fragrance from a perfume;

The inscrutable shadows peeking

From behind window panes, savoring ‘sanguine’,

And obscure actions going unnoticed.

Strength of some kind was trapped in a cellar—

Hands and legs bound by some hidden force:

Force that could even mould immoveable pillars.

Who is to be blamed in this endless blame-game

That goes on from dawn until dusk?

They do not have winners; they do not have losers.

The child grows up drinking stale milk,

But hardly knows anything of wine.

His vision accustomed to a hackneyed

Rumination that has no good end

And his tongue tried by the taste of iron.

Crowded cities, stashed alleys, and breathless living—

Every night they see a Flying Dutchman

Strolling at the time of their trade

And disappearing into the moonlight—

A grave witness.

Something pricks them at the back,

Yet unknown—standing for an ominous anonymity.

Their sights have been habituated to the

Grey in the sky—

Black nights and black days:

Hardly indistinguishable.

Their existence sometimes trapped

By the clutches of an unknown venom,

The cart moves on still.

I set out witnessing the

Brightness of the concrete jungle—

The glasses reflecting sunlight:

Sparsely letting it in.

Howsoever hard one tries,

The quality of water we drink

Can never be improved—

Although the sun shall continue to rise

And the moon shall still have its light—

We shall keep forgetting what day had been

And what night is.