©
2006 Ritwik Deo
(The
following piece is from Deo's Chronicles of New Delhi.)
The domed splendour blushes
In the dawn light
Somewhere a Muezzin calls out
The morning prayers
The call melting in the morning air
dissolving in the alleys
A young boy, skull capped
plays
His morning cup of tea
swirling at my feet
Inside a storm is brewing
The departing cold nips me
as if
A last taunt
the chill creeps down my spine
And flees
into the receding shadows
Sitting here on Step #23
I see the world unfurl
the slow engine of work
Start
haltingly
Suddenly a slash of a silver sword
at the horizon
The sky rips open
and out spills the glorious sunshine
The spire on the Jama Masjid
catches the consecrated gleam
roosting pigeons shimmer
Sitting here on Step #23, Jama Masjid
I see
bobbing black and whites
Burqas and Kurtas
silent
Like a mime show
challenging me
To answer
a question I don't know
Step#14
It's dusk
sitting here I sere the gleaming highway
Flanked
by glittering lights
Taillights zoom
in and out
Mesmersing
I sit here
on Step #14 Akshardham Temple
And I see
sparking saris
Animated chunnis
sparkling crowd
Fireflies in an orgy
inscence fills the evening air
Somewhere the licking flames
of a yagya paint the Krishna idol
A supernova of colours
and I wonder
This parade
if it's earthly
Or a mirage so ethereal
Step #0
It's night
lying on the bed
The mattress weighs me down
sinking in the fluff and feathers
Of the plush pillow
images rampage my subconscious
This clash, this chaos, those echoing
wails, fights, squabbles, blood and gore
What have we done
how could those divine hands
The ones that wrote the dome
sculpted the temple
Slay each other
this world
Of illogical
crumbles and pixels
And I lie
I still lie
Lie still
I lie here
on
Step #0
All work is
property of Ritwik Deo.
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