Stepping Into the Same River

These steps are familiar
But the rhythm of my feet as I walk on them feels different

I know these trees - they look just as they did two years ago
Yet somehow the breeze caressing my skin feels unknown

The park bench is the same as it was back then
But this time I sit by myself

I feel the same energy in the air:
The streets beaming with people walking briskly,
Panorama of lights in the sky, gentle hum of the traffic 
…Yet, I also feel my own inertia,
which is foreign to me

The buildings still touch the skies
I still stare in awe - floor after floor of human triumph against gravity
… But my dreams
seem to have taken the elevator
down to the basement which I cannot see

Riverside Park

End of a hot summer day
Walking on a path enveloped by trees
Trying to find my way
Cooling, gentle breeze

A boy runs with a football
Girls in floral skirts stroll chattily
An old man jogs along
Loud cheers from the soccer field ahead
Must be a goal
Meanwhile the sun sets in on the Hudson

And for a moment I forget
For a moment, it feels like summer -
The summer I’ve been waiting for
For three summers now
For a moment life is full of possibility
For a moment I’m back to being a carefree schoolboy
The world my playground

Marine Drive On a Friday Evening

For the poets
The lovers
The ones who want to forget the office deadlines
The two school friends - now adults with jobs
Who meet here every Friday 
The families with little kids:
(because Dad came back early from work today)

Others of course are indoors - 
In local trains
In offices working late
In restaurants waiting for their date

In Tutions studying for exams
In coaching classes to get into IIT
in houses preparing dinner- 
some their own, some for others

In temples, mosques and Gurudwaras,
In Shivaji park, playing cricket while it’s still dry
In their rooms binge watching a new Netflix show

All of them knowing, that the sea is there
The city is there
Moving along swiftly

In its myriad forms, colours, problems… 
and everything in between
.
.
.
I pause to look at my watch
Time to go,
I turn to my right. 
Kaali peeli waiting, how convenient.

‘Boss, Prabhadevi chaloge’
I’m greeted with a nod

I get in- 
Wheels roll ahead..
back from the sea to the cacophony of Mumbai roads.

Wednesday midnight

Wednesday midnight
Trying to clear the old chest of drawers
Setting : table, chair, dim tube light 
And all things that were yours

Novels papers and work scattered
But to my foolish heart 
all that mattered
Was one piece of my art:

A handwritten note
A poem it contained
Two years ago I had wrote
How heavily had it rained

That July day when I was with you
- for the last time-at the coffee shop
As together we sat and sipped hot brew
The temperature suddenly began to drop

I wonder if it was the cold weather
That a sudden coldness crept in
In our buoyant conversation
And so it faded, that beautiful grin

Of yours, as you explained the situation
I never saw you again
The poem lies incomplete
There is no pain
With words I am rather replete

Yet the poem
It lies incomplete
I cannot write, alas!
Words, ideas, they come and pass

The poem’s incompleteness
Penetrates into my being
Leaving me in great distress
As I sit and gaze into the unseeing

And remember that day of July
I wish my memories fade and die
I wish my memories fade and die

Apathy

She walks with a hunch
Asking something to munch
Her wrinkled face, earth brown skin
Her hand stretched out in –

Emptiness, asking relief from pain.
Looking at her with disdain
Is the man in the driver’s seat
As she bears the searing heat

And pleads, with an outstretched paw
Looking at him with an uncanny awe
With her dull, deep eyes
Asking some pennies to buy some rice

The man remains unstirred
Her weak voice remains unheard
She stifles an emergent tear
The horns’ cacophony strikes her ear

The light has changed
Wheels race ahead, as if deranged
The man too has gone
She stands there, Alone.