I am new to this city.
It's 11-30 pm.
Back in my small town, ppl sleep by 9-30/10 at the most.
But this city is still wide awake. As they say, hte night is still young!
The full moon comes up, fully decked, like a new bride on the horizon of the night sky.
She smiles at the neon bulbs? And, did I see the neon lamps grimacing at the moon. Oh God, am I going senile or is my mind playing games with me?
A poor girl comes with a very natural artificial rose, "Sir, take one please,only 1 dollar, 3 for 2!". I said I dont need roses any more. She insists for some time and leaves for other customers. I look at the moon, neon lamps, and then the child, and back again to the withering moon. Is the world coming to an end?
A homeless old man sleeping on the footpath is run over by a car. A crowd gathers but they are busy in settling ,"who is right"? Nobody thinks of taking the poor old man to a hospital.
I desperately try to get into the crowd and the heart of the matter but,alas, fail.
Poor girls in famine infested sambalpur, orissa get screwed by highway truck drivers for just 10 rupees ( less than a quarter of a dollar), cotton farmers in Andhra Pradesh commit suicide by jumping into wells unable to pay off farm loans, and ladies in Manipur bares their body and soul ( naked protest) on july 15, 2004, unable to bear the indian army's atrocities( latest being the alleged capture, subsequent torture , rape and murder of a local girl, Th Manorama) but the Indian government is busy in setting up biotech, infotech and naotech parks in and around Delhi and other metros.
The news of brutal rape of dalits in Bihar, M.P. and U.P. takes several weeks to reach the corridors of power in the Delhi 'durbar'. While in the past week alone, several thousands of software code lines get uploaded from Bangalore and beijing to the U. S> of A.- the land of oppotunity!
India shining said the previous indian govt and got itself extinguished in the recent polls. Then came the congress govt with promises galore for the common men. And,lo, it is now too busy to clean its house, of tainted, corrupt, and charge-sheeted ministers. And ,of course, another international meet or festival will come soon in the name of these very 'common men', in whose behalves several international funds and man-hours are spent without their ever realizing them. No doubt, the common men have-of late- become very uncommon.
The shrunken, withering ( dying?) moon is almost at the end of the distant horizon.
I light up a cigarette, have a last look at a few pages of "the alchemist" and " Neruda's poems".
The night is now in middlw age. I better go and see if 'morpheus' can take me in her arms and cool down this delirious mind.
I remember walking back to my apartment, the lullaby my grandma used to sing:
"Tha Tha Thabungton
Nacha Morambi Pobige
Pobi Shanam Nambige
Heibong Charong Amatang
Thadabirak Lo Thabungton"
A free translation of the above:
" Oh moon, precious moon
I will also take your child
on my back
and sing a lullaby for her
Please drop a bunch
of fig fruits
from above there'.
P.S. Grandmas' have now stopped singing the above lullaby since Neil Armstrong, as the wiser, superhuman techno-king americans have told that there are onlt frozen water on the surface and no fig trees!"- thangs to modern technology-we can now probably sing lullabies of macdonald's!
Its late, friends. Fellow web travelers. Bon voyage,au revoir,auf wiedersehen!
Ciao