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Dominic Alapat is a poet and journalist. His writing can be found at www.woodsmoke.wordpress.com.
Tangled in the City
I walked for nearly
forty-five minutes;
the cars were waves beating forth
endlessly
all over the place. Steel,
glass,
noise and speed, I was engulfed in it.
Their
horns were a sad music playing
in my head. Then, relief at
last! The
beach
appears, almost fading into darkness.
There is
still light, and the boats and
the houses
form a strange maze, a kind of silence
travelling
in my mind, as I slow down
and walk around the upturned boats
blue,
white, yellow, lying like friends
on the sand; the small
thatched houses,
the windows like people looking out at
you
and not seeing anything.
********************************
Lunch Break
Under the shade of the
trees,
in bright afternoon, two friends,
classmates,
are sitting close to
each other on the railings
at
Five Gardens. They are
sucking on Lakhan's famous
kalakhatta
gola. This has
become their routine for months.
Wisps
of smoke rise from the
ice-chill of the purple drink
in
their glasses. The boys
have hurriedly had their
lunch
and rushed to their
rendezvous. Now, as they finish
with
their first, small stop, they head
to their next - Murli Dairy
Farm,
just behind their school.
There, they have
plates
of samosas in tangy-sweet red
chutney.
Then, it's a brisk walk to
Wadala
station and further to
the right towards the video-game
parlour.
The slot-machines
await them and the jangling of
coins,
the thrill of money.
There is still time to spare,
so
hurry, hurry reader to
the hawker selling pieces
of
mango, tamarind and other
fruit mixed with rock salt.
This
is not an adventure
reader, this is a fairytale
and
it exists where all
fairytales live. Ask the boys,
they
themselves believe it.
Only, you may not venture to
do
so and now the bell rings,
making the boys run towards
the
school-gates.
********************************
Round
Their bodies weary with
play,
the boys walked round the colony,
the
twelve lime-washed buildings.
The evening light was mercy
pouring
into their lives, the trees their
breathing.
There were so many of them; tamarind,
mango,
baer, like a universe out
there
that was theirs. Children went cycling
by in
groups, round the thin strip of
road.
The boys walked by chatting, their
faces
alive in the light, comprehending; the
world
pouring into their mouths, as
they
laugh and keep walking.
********************************
The Road
The road is the memory of
excitement.
Of lamp-posts in darkness, wind.
And
buildings which looked out on them,
old, lime-washed,
two-storied with
red-tiled roofs,
dreaming a perpetual dream. A magic
world
of stories drifting in the air, lovers
in cars,
music, parties. And how all this fitted
into
the ultimate dream, serene, in changing
light,
like grace on our tongues, our lives,
the
only reality we knew, that made sense.
********************************
Sand
My eyes take in the long
stretch
of
beach, the sea.
Time, which has passed
like sand
through an
hourglass,
has stood still today.
The waves lash the
beach
on
and on. There are just
three people splashing
in the
water.
Beyond the sand,
there are homes and hotels.
Old
bungalows so
quiet,
the mind too stays still.
As though anything
that
enters
this quietness
could be silent, at peace;
like the
rocks here,
like the sand.
And over there, the three
who were
splashing
in
the water are returning
to their guesthouse.
Their
clothes wet,
they walk
in the sun through the trees.
I follow them
with my eyes
to
the verandah they
are now entering.
Water drips from
their
clothes
and bodies;
and sand has got in
everywhere.
What
a day,
endless, ever-present,
beautiful! I catch
myself
looking at
my
own shadow.
Tangled in the City - Lunch Break - Round - The Road - Sand
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