The falls of sarees/ depth of coat pockets/
Inches on hips/ loops and throughs of neckties/
Colonial remnants of respect/ growboy visions,
All dots, from the fir, geotropically positive,
That is still, a frozen palette, animate suddenly
At the surge of music, and I jump off the stage,
In the chaos, softly, to avoid a hard fall.
These are the things I thought but did not say when
The stranger smiled at me and I returned.
He started by commenting on my shirt- red and burnished
by the septembered sun- and then
in a sudden change, how the builder of the cricket stadium
At Gahunje was in jail for tax-evasions but he walked on clouds and water
(and in out-of-sync buttons; the uppermost off pattern)
And then upped his tone to speak of a local big dog More, Ramkrishna More,
Then, a whisper, that middle voice of mixed intents, which said to
a stranger he met 21 seconds ago, the way of death of that man who had two avatars in his name.
In his words- forgot the condom and died of AIDS, sala madarchod!
Then an unwhispered laugh which deformed into a grotesque halo of some dim enlightenment,
that churned Amrut- which evaporates inner thoughts and tattoos them on skin and breaks the idiosyncrasies of strangeness and familiarity- revealing two paths.
His and mine-
And the last memory of his jowly face and my taciturn smile- where is your house, I pointed east,
He west and said 'Ask for Shimla, that's where you'll find me'
I smiled India and walked my privileged ass back home, though it's difficult to tell where home is.
~Ajay
5/9/18
