A little vomiting
And thereafter……
He forgot everybody
And everybody began to remember him.
With cotton-packed mouth
He lay speechless
And everybody began to speak.
He swelled with dead air;
His room swelled with lungfuls of air,
He began to rot;
Everybody inhaled incense.
He was burnt with his clothes,
His family emerged with new clothes.
Standing at the border
I tried and tried but failed
To measure the thickness of the thin border of time
Poles apart or more than that…
Money heaped like coins,
Sympathy showered like friends,
State and insurance fell like garlands.
Year long appeal and petition for arrears
Flowed like currents.
The busy hands toiling for bread
Silently fed butter and honey
To all kith and kin
Death indeed.
An all-time slum dog millionaire.
