Streetscapes 1

A street in Moukhali- buzzing with Friday afternoon goodwill,
ringing with singing songbird bells
of speeding butterfly red-blue-green rickshaws.
Rickshaws adorned like new brides
with gold-silver paper, sparkles and film stars and saints and shrines and blessings
ringing their way down labyrinthine lanes and cataract blind alleyways
like electrified brides in love
pulling along
their puzzled, perspiring cycling rickshaw-wallahs,
their men.

A kid with a broken leg in grey plaster lies on a roadside bench
Waiting for a bus or a mother or a meal; he eyes
A special battalion commando soldier in camouflage uniform who shares his bench
But doesn’t share his snack, which he bites and chews with un-camouflaged pleasure-
A sliced green mango with diced green chillies and rock-salt, eyes screwed up
In the sensuality of the sour mango- burning chilly- crunching salt inside his mouth.
The lame kid watches the soldier’s guilty delights and the automatic rifle,
Which lies across the soldier’s lap
Like a giant catapult.