They languor in the everyday
sun in their eyes
Constantly talking with their half-shut eyes
They observe, absorb but do not report
Almost jumping lazily on every passer-by
I spot one on the stairs by the subway
I spot two right at my doorstep each morning
There are pairs of them and very few times more than three together
They laze around, barely wanting to eat
Not even looking to eat
You hear him say something to you
In his usual garrulous self-loathing manner
Words, you cant make head or tail of
You think of the spare bread slices kept on the dining table
You think of the extra chapatis
And wasn’t there an unopened milk tetra pack too?
You think of the neighbours who had Teriyaki for dinner
You look at his face
His eyes, culling a look of discernment
Tentacles of the rozmarra do not bother you at this hour
You pick yourself out of the layers of duvets
Dig your feet into the cold chappals you’d bought in the arid south Indian town you had kept a job at
You walk down
Heat the mound carefully in a wide-mouthed tetradish
You try to make the food not look like landfill
Walk up to the door, open the gate
You’re aware that its dark and lonely outside
You know the monsters hound the capital and run amok at this hour
They call it ungodly, but mostly it is just another way of telling us to stay in
Stay confined
You think of not stepping out,
Of smoking the broken-cigarette kept on the table instead
Your thoughts then veer off to the shared cab ride of the morning
When you had rolled the window of the passenger seat down and had a lit one for yourself
It was a shared cab and you had felt a palpitating beat in your heart
Two drags of the B&H lights later, a co-passenger had told you to “speed up, ma’am”
You had ignored him just like you ignored the instinct of not stepping out
You walked out, and you finished the smoke in the morning cab ride
You whistled the usual sweet-tooth tune
You crane your neck in the biting bone-chilling cold
Afraid of not stepping out too far into the pitch dark of the night
You take bigger drags of the smoke
The co-passenger crams his neck,
Brings his lips near your shoulder and yells
“The ash is coming in!”
“So you can close the window,” you tell him
“I will die if I close the window.”
You look ahead,
Out of the windshield
Into the oblivion like lanes of Sri Aurobindo Marg
“Bobooo” you call out,
Stressing a bit on the last syllable
No one in ear shot
You walk in back to your house, in to your room
You walk back, owning the mound of bread and chapatis bathed in milk
The vessel too hot from the microwave heating
You roll the window back up
Smoked the full cigarette
You think that could have been the dying man’s declaration
You think that could have been a dim and distant echo
From a land far off
A distance in the dissonance
Heard of discord?
You thought the food looked palatable
You thought the cigarette looked harmless
Here you are
They will tell you quiet is safe zone
They will tell you staying in is safe
No,
Being yourself is
Burning bridges down and with it the cigarettes too is safe zone
Caring for the canine is safe zone
Caring when you want to is safe zone