Aaj ki raat bahut garam hawa chalti hai Aaj ki raat na neend aayegi ' Kaifi Aazmi
Tonight a very hot wind is blowing Tonight I won't be able to sleep ' Kaifi Aazmi
I bequeath my death to Mumbai, its many streets, its many lanes And a sun that never rose on that day There were no shadows from Bollywood hoardings Neither from the ghettos of Kurla and Worli Nor from the mortal divide of a stranger innocence
I bequeath my death to the beggar who died outside the Leopold Caf' They shot him and his past; his coins fell from his present They shot my past too at the narrow street next to it Where I had once kissed a girl in a fevered evening And dared again in a night of untoward violence
I bequeath my death to the fireflies at queen's necklace That never arrived that day And to the single Kalashnikov bullet That stared shamelessly at me From a footprint in the dark
I bequeath my death to many a death Many a hurt And the sky that bled In a single shroud, a single season, A single word
I bequeath my death to Mumbai poets Kaifi Aazmi, Arun Kolatkar and many others And those who died in their end thoughts They died again and again With me on that day
