DR. SANTOSH BAKAYA
HAVE WE REACHED?
A spire of a church loomed through
the mist
As the refugees trudged on with
their meagre belongings
Utensils, rugs, bundles of clothes
and sundry other things
Eyes fixed on the spire in the
distance.
Had they reached?
Had they? The sky was still gray.
“Pray, have we reached?
Son, why don’t you say something,
have we reached?”
Asked the old man clutching on to
his son’s elbow
Whose one hand clutched his
toddler, whose speed was slow
.
Tears welled up in sky’s eyes at
the old man’s plight.
Suddenly, the stately height of the
church appeared spectral
Alas, the atmosphere suddenly
became sepulchral.
The old man slumped under the tree
Untethered but free, free, at last,
free!
Parched lips too tired to utter the
words,
“Have we reached?”
THE RAIN AT PLAY!
The roads shone reflecting the glow
of street lights
threading down in two golden
festoons.
The moon had the air of a goofy
stand-up comedian
lopsidedly it smiled and then
quickly hid
behind a horde of clouds. Gray and
ominous.
The rain stopped.
Maybe tomorrow it would come again?
Morning came, with pitter –patter
of rain.
The bitter, the teeth-gritter, the
fence-sitter, the web-knitter,
the hard- hitter all were swept by
rain's refrain.
Patter-pitter! Pitter patter!
I could hear the water gurgling
down drainpipes.
In a spurt of juvenile glee, ran I
to the balcony.
The wind drove a stinging breeze
into my face.
Trucks rattled past shooting a
spray of mud.
Someone slipped on the road with a
thud!
Another tittered.
Pitter patter! Patter pitter!
The rain- drenched cow stopped
chewing the cud
watching the scene with bovine
curiosity.
Was there a bud of a smile on the
cow’s lips?
A phlegmatic man watched on, hands
on wet hips.
The awning dripped,
Pitter patter! Patter pitter!
In the rainy dawn, the wind lashed
on with withering scorn.
The clouds went into paroxysms of
untrammeled glee
They rumbled and roared, and the
rain poured.
The streets throbbed with
rollicking humor gay
with a devil- may- care recklessness,
the rain was at play!
THE STENCH
In tattered clothes and grey hair,
hunched by care
An octogenarian hobbles around
Wheezing out her tubercular lungs
Thriving on leftovers flung from
high rise mansions
With the garbage and rats for
company
Money she has none.
In days scorching and sunny
She carries with her an
unmistakable stench of decay.
This woman in tattered clothes and
dreadlocks, gray.
[Were the Rastafarians here?]
She washes and scrubs under a
public tap
But the stench remains
Like a pesky refrain.
Not even the perfumes of Arabia
will wash the stench away.
Cars rumble past, shining and sleek
As her dry eyes leak on her
withered cheek.
Auto rickshaws sneak past rickety
buses
Ignoring under- the- breath
muttered curses.
Taxis halt tantalizingly near
commuters
Looking down upon outdated scooters
Pedestrians negotiate dug-out roads
Under the contempt of ostentatious billboards
She hunches on a bench, but cannot
shake off the stench.
At night she sneaks into her
hellhole
Leaning precariously against a
termite –ridden wooden pole.
But the stench still clings to her
with an incredible resilience
It refuses to go- this stench of
societal apathy and indifference
DR SANTOSH BAKAYA
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