Teeming
millions, half naked souls
Unshaven faces
clad in half burnt skins-
They toil in
the unforgiving city.
They dropped in
the city, uninvited
as from the
womb a seventh one-
forsaken amid
the squalid swarm.
They slog under
the sultry sun
And kicks the
hot asphalt with plastic
chappals, smears it with spit of pan.
The evening
breeze of river carries
dreams of home,
far off- not here-
in the dingy outskirts of smokestacks.
Their daughters
there now fructify,
here their eyes
search buxom dames
of the same
age, breaking sacrilege.
They toil, they
sweat, they sell
from
aphrodisiac to incense sticks
to book their
beds in cheap brothel.
The never
ending burning piece char
their vitals,
every passing day, their sins
keep the purgatory’s
door ajar.
One day their
tired eyes lids,
smeared in
futile felicity drop,
dissolving the
heartless city in darkness.
Amitava
Chakrabarty
