An ephemeral throbbing sensation
in the heartland of my heritage
From unbelonging
I move to belonging
The temple's gopurams glitter
Shiva Vishnu Muruga Ganesha
displayed in harlequin silken
robes
are gesturing me to kneel
A bare-chested priest intones
mantras
kindling the golden Agni
an angelus to his rites
In my stately hotel
I lick the platter clean
of ambrosia
while on the street below
a man defecates in the undergrowth
The tight gnarled arterial
streets
are clotted with gaudy bazaars
boast their stench of bilious
manure
a waxen woman seeks
the trishaw's shade
her bulk emaciating
her
Alzheimer-struck slave
Toiling rustic stagger
with their bane of blighted
harvests
Consumptive mothers crawl
out of
cramped mud-huts
their withered breasts unbeckoning
to the parched throats of
dehydrated infants
The jaundiced naked child
festering with postules
frolics under the cruel sun
Distempered boars and rabid
dogs
ungainly with distended abdomens
partake in the revelry
Leprous Syphilitic
cads vagabonds roughnecks
delinquents
all bear the angst of destitution
their hearts carved out of
gall
These then are the deranged
faces
of the land's inglorious
philistines
These then are the heart-wrenching
sight
through which my blood flows
(Based upon impressions of
New Delhi. Composed: September 1993)
©
1999