A Prose Poem: From My Diary*
1.
I used to go drinking at the sweepers colony many moons back. At that time I had nothing to speak of. With me would be my carefree, vagabond and thieving friends. Once in a while I would even go by myself. When after roaming around the whole day we would head home, even the tired birds would notice us. 2.
Everybody loved him, the fat, black man who would stand with a bottle of country liquor in his hands. At least he was better than any doctor in the whole city. He looked like one of those black cows standing peacefully and quietly near a butcher's stall. Though he admittedly never sold a bottle on credit. 3.
The crabs in the pail would come to life at night. And the chana-chur boy in a show of extra hospitality would squeeze a lemon slice on top of it. No alphabet ever got more attention than the ones on the paper cones that held the chana-chur. Ah, on some nights I remember all that, just as one thinks of one's mother when abroad. 4.
From the surrounding night darkness would come to stand in front of the narrow lane. We would be visible to everybody except ourselves. Tottering legs and illuminated faces. Everybody else seemed to be drunk. And we would talk about girls. Look up at the innumerable stars and listen to the loves and romances of our friends. Listen and listen till growing weary we would say enough, sing us a song then. 5.
Not the grief narrative of a marsia. A water-soaked night song. With the song would come fishes and forest trees. When the city's slumber deepened it would turn on its side and go to sleep. When we stepped inside our homes to hear our mother's rebukes it would seem as if all love had fled to remote jungles. We would then return to the streets, to search out long-lost lakes.
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