The lying-in

I was in Mumbai for a short while ,attending a Corporate Centre meeting on frauds .Everything looked and sounded so familiar.Only the crows cawed less intensely now ,as golden sunrays entered the guest house windows in the morning through pale curtains . The clutter of traffic appeared more bearable as the roads seemed to stretch interminably. The mystique of the old Mumbai and its delicious unpredictability no longer survived. Everything remained placid and controllable.

That day in Mumbai

My morning came back full of feisty crows
Fed on Mumbai garbages and fetid sea-fish
Of the harbor’s heights, not the fragrant one
The day echoed with fallacies and lost moneys;
In all it was putrefaction and beauty in tatters.
The pixels were agitated by lack of sky spaces;
The roads were picture-perfect, with rocks flowing
And Haji Ali mysteries near the winding flyover.
The sounds of car horns meshed with crows’ caws
Which were continually shrill and metallic as always.
Rukmini’s lying-in hospital and juice beauty parlor
Nested quietly in the space above the footpath
The lying-in endlessly stretched into the windows
And piercing the blinds ,broke into the summer sky.