Untitled 10

with palms stuffed in frock pockets
spelling a hindi film tune,
she trails friends trudging to school
spotting squirrels jetting from
rain to silk cotton trees
is late to school.
holding an injured magpie
at the foot of a tamarind,
feeds it water, rotis from
her lunch pack,
misses school again.

untitled 9

familiar with ordinariness in
undistinguished times,
aged simplema takes baby steps
to the church
she has adorned
from times ago.
thought has laid pathways in
a thick top of hair.
a laugh,
a touch of friends
shrinks the webwork on her face.
dropping two grand-daughters
at the school she read,
simplema rests with the bible
entire afternoons.
opening,
shutting the book,
she wanders the jamun
curtaining the window of
her corner room,
from an wooden armchair.
in the evening
brings them home,
feeds them,
shares cartoon network,
hands them  to her daughter
toiling at a superstore.
retires to bed under the cross
waiting to be crossed.   

untitled 8

on the asphalt road
a donkey takes to driving;
at sewri, flamingos are boating;
in juhu, birds are training to
be pilots;
chopped tress warm open-sky
slums;
astroturfs smother grass;
flowers in a blossom loss.
a few own the earth meant
for all.
orbital dislocation could wheel
the earth into wild space,
with a spinning headche.
they were before us.
may not be after us. 

untitled 7

from far
a basket of unoiled hair
bobs from a mobile, steel
bin in the mornings.
lakshmi digs the bin for plastic
waste;
breaking off,
sleeps on her plastic sack
with stray dogs beside a twig fire;
till, mother comes from the morning
search for waste.
butterflying from child to a girl,
wary of the sniff and snore of
tarred roads,
lakshmi earns a vada pav with tea
for wiping clean the tea shop
under the rain tree.
her airy plea for a pair of plastic
bangles is pending.
evenings,
rests behind the bin
filling up fast.
her mother started that way
continues to this day. 

untitled 6.

on a deserted walk-way
she keeled on him.
a lorry thudded by.
an office crowd,
set down by a local train,
trudged by.
a moment undissolved in
a streets' outcry.