The morning has come
It’s not bright
It’s filled with gloom
Prognosticating the doom
That will come very soon
Delhi’s hazy and dark
With clouds cast overhead
I advance leaving my single-roomed lodging
To my college
In the heart of the city
I am greeted with sullen faces as I tread along
No emotion, blank eyes everywhere
The rush for money has begun since early morning
The roads are packed:
Big busses, small and long cars,
Bicycles, rickshaws, autos, scooters and bikes,
Young men and women, college students showing-off
Typical emotionless cacophony of the materialistic town
As I descend down the metro-station
There’s rush again,
The train is over-crowded,
People are huddled,
Their bodies piercing against one another’s,
I am also one of them,
Stuck between a young girl and an old man,
Your identity easily dissolves here,
You are frustrated with the crowd,
Their pushing and pulling,
And no way giving,
The population explosion indeed,
But isn’t each individual a part,
I ponder and wonder,
How will the future be like?
But halfway through the thought,
My station arrives,
It’s called New Delhi
With much struggle I deboard,
And lastly a sigh of relief,
Exiting the station with difficulty,
I am in the open air,
Oh what a pungent smell,
By the roadside as you walk the pedestrian way,
There are men urinating on the public walls,
They are neither proud nor gay,
Rivers and streams flow poisoning the air,
Not only that there’s human dirt everywhere.
If you follow this way further, (you need courage sir!)
You will see true India in its dark colours,
Men and women,
Old and young,
Living and dying,
Covered and naked,
Dirty and filthy,
Hungry and numb,
For days and days their stomachs have ached,
They look for opportunity,
They steal and they beg,
They add to the cacophony
Policemen you will see in this very way,
From this early morn,
They have begun to sin which they consider pious act,
Bribery and corruption blossoms,
It grows day by day,
If you find it more than enough to bear,
Take a turn midway to your right,
Take a bus or just walk by,
In few minutes you will reach
The posh circle of C.P.
Just take a stroll along the swanky buildings,
Or just go and sit in the Central Park,
But beware a bomb had blasted there just only last year,
It may happen again,
For all know well, its now quite common,
An everyday occurrence
Now let’s come back,
I’ll take the way straight forward,
For you know I am getting late,
One always is late in this city,
Oh what a jam!
Traffic is unbearable,
There is not even a place,
For an innocent soul to pass by the road side,
A bike or bus may break your head off,
I take a longer route,
Round I go and now I am almost there,
The guard asks for my card of identity,
How is one’s identity defined?
I ponder everyday, but never is an answer found!
Now I have reached my college,
Once again, safe and sound,
The airs have changed
There are trees and flowers around,
I am late once again
My teacher gives a cold stare
Through her glasses round,
I take my seat and am lost somewhere profound!
The day will end in the same way,
And again I’ll take my way back home,
It’ll be the same one, only the chaos will extend,
But this time it may be in a friend’s company,
And in deep discussions we may fall
Over the faults of political system and society,
We’ll depart with no solution, nothing would be gained,
And this monotony of life in this hubbub of this town
Will forever and ever persist,
Our lives would be lived like the acts of a clown!
