Skip to main content

A City in Ruins


A CITY IN RUINS

It's past the witching hour,
As my lonely heart cruises, the silent streets of a sleeping city.
The muted barking of dogs can be heard and echoes the loneliness of my heart.
The garbage littering the streets is the detritus that is my life.

A curse hangs over me, 
The curse of karma!
The curse of deeds that cannot be undone.
The curse of the tears that I have caused,
The wrenching sobs still echo through the city alleys, imparting ill-will.

The city has no redeeming features at this hour,
It is just a shadowy landscape,
The shadows could be concealing grand structures,
Or like the landscape of my mediocre life could be a mass of nothingness.

The city has no tall buildings,
It has no great ruins,
It has no attraction for tourists,
It definitely attracts no settlers,
It is just a cesspool!
Is it why it feels familiar to me?

The city entrances no one,
The city has no refuge for anyone,
The city once had a beautiful garden, well nurtured by a loving heart,
The garden exists no more, it has languished,
Just like my Life.


The later the hour, the darker it gets,
This darkness holds no hope of a dawn,
This inky blackness shrouds the city,
The darkness swirls unmercifully,
It is slowly permeating my soul.



The only sign of life in this arena of destruction,
Is rodents and cannibals,
If I were to stop,
They would pick the flesh off of my bones,
Should I ward them off?
Or should I just submit to being ravaged, like this city.


There is a foul odor,
It emanates from the stultifying morass lining the streets,
The gutters are overflowing with decayed hopes and dreams,
Are these mine?
Or do they belong to ships that have passed in the night?


Is the city redeemable?
Even if no grand buildings are built here,
Even if there are no whistling fountains,
Even if the streets aren’t teeming with human life,
Could there just be some soothing greenery?
Could there just be a peaceful brook running through?
Could there be a small, neat, clean hut that would provide refuge?

Is there hope?

Or was it this city’s destiny to be a carcass?


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thappad

Thappad The prelude to the aria that is Thappad, is a dizzying runabout of a homemaker's humdrum daily chores. It serves to establish the roles each character has established for themselves. The husband played by newbie, Pavail Gulati is wonderfully self-obsessed and completely oblivious to anything but his own needs. The wife played by Tapsee Pannu ( as if we didn't know! Ha ha!) is on the other end of the spectrum. She is hyper aware of the needs of all those around her and revels in being needed and being able to be of service. The nuances that are written into the script are sheer brilliance. Consider the opening montage introducing the main characters to us. The wife being driven about, the girlfriend being received with love and finally a super successful lawyer finding freedom in hanging out a car window. The conversation that ensues between all of them, sketches skillfully the back stories of the lot of them. The movie is far from being a chest beating comment...
2 comments
Read more

Good things come in threes!

 For me, good things come in threes………. And yet again, three things that made my week and will for certain go on to make my weekend. A web series – The Ba***ds of Bollywood. This is such a fun ride. I must start with the mockery that is made of the entire Sameer Wankhede incident. They found an actor who closely resembles the real-life officer; it is hilarious. It is just good fun, and should be taken in that spirit, forget the cries of nepotism; I know of generations who practice the same profession repeatedly, so let us give this one a rest, shall we? It has all the ingredients of a bhel puri, and they are used well. So do not watch this one expecting caviar. We have seen Raghav Juyal and Lakshya Lalwani slug it out in Kill and show very good chemistry, so also in this one. One brilliant scene is the one in which the protagonist scares the heebie-jeebies out of a critic, who is totally modeled on Rajeev Masand. Too much fun! And such swagger! And ah Bobby Deol, the phoenix – what...
Post a Comment
Read more