dawn sleep.
afternoo seistas.
earthy fiestas.



.......

on the way to the temple.
an elephant, chained to a banyan
on a patch of grass and earth.
the lady, unstill as ever, over a primeval hurt.
unkempt, alone, scraping her sides with
a banyan twig held in her trunk,
sways to an inherited beat.
on the pavement, under a blue plastic sheet,
a couple, many days and nights old,
sip tea from the same plastic cup.
cars in tinted glasses swim by.
raindrops brush the bare air.
he pauses, some distance from faith.


.........


raindrops roll off mango, jackfruit, jamun trees
to a patch of tarred road.
five feet from the road, he stood.
a cattle egret stepped around daintily.
a line of poetry,
disappeared after two mornings.

a rainy morning.
an empty church
soft weaving silence.



........

swathed in tinted glass,
a citified soul relaxes
with a mobile on a drive.  

in 40 years
never managed a window seat
facing the wind in a local.
at office missed a window desk.
brushed up wordage on night shifts,
signed off editions,
scoops, bylines never his.
retired.
is at the Press Club corner, on a day grained with rain drops.
orders four rums -- one each for Joe, John and Jim --
for memories gone.
after the last dark hour,
the last friend,
the last rum from Mohammad,
stretches on the floor,
to the distant hum of the Sea and the Drive.
the Club is his, he of the Club.
an yellowed newsitem.