East of Eden
On highways to nowhere
Where the compass does not swing
They walk.
The other side, westwards
Where beautiful sunsets happen
Food is cooked, whiskey rationed
We fret and talk.
A father steals a cycle
And leaves behind a note of apology –
Two hundred miles distant his child is ill
And crying.
Westwards a gold spangled window closes
On a darkness filled with embers
The rose that had flamed today
Tomorrow will be dying.
Baffled men in khaki outfits
Swatting flies off the highways,
Ragtag crowds and hurtling trains
Sweep the gleaming tracks.
Westwards in our lockdown rags
We do some cleaning too
Earning stripes in boxer shorts
With brooms and dusters laced with snacks.
On state borders we hear
Buses have failed simple sums
But on scrabble boards we pass
With piano fingers and shining words
Acetone, Blighted, Humanity,
Herds…
Made of asphalt, off the dust
The destitute, they come –
With proud poverty, bowls of rust,
Baked hands, watered veins
With these they feed with these they quench
The hungry and the drained.
And then the nights, the fretful nights,
The unknown nights, the sleepless nights,
They return with flawless regimen
Children, women, dogs and men
On IT highways lorries zoom
Off the dirt roads vehicles vroom.
Tomorrow surely they’ll get some food
If not by day then by noon
If not by sunset then by the
Moon.
With grateful hands will they mix
To what is doled into their hands
The lumps of sweetness in our
Words
The pinch of salt in our tears –
We the humans, they the herds.
Years later when 2020
Becomes a matter of the past
From some chapter in some
World
That will outlive this brilliant cast
Of man animal cattle and strays
Running screaming hither thither
A hand will rise, a bony hand
Holding a rusty knife and yes
An unforgiving mirror.
Raj Sinha hung his scuffed corporate boots some years ago and now spends much of his time in Mumbai wrenching out his unexplored soul through his writing.