Wordside Woman

     She thumbed through the pages of the booklet, looking at the intricate designs of bead work and laces. I was sitting in a corner of the redolent room that was teeming with activity. Every ten or fifteen minutes she would quickly glance at me and pass a smile. We had barely talked that day. Suddenly I felt a chill from the air conditioner. A toddler on all fours was gently tugging at one of the packets in my hands. I got up from where I was sitting and went up to her, leaving the bags behind on the couch. She sensed my presence behind her and pointed towards two photographs without lifting her head from the pages. I wanted her to look beautiful that day. By the time we stepped out from there, three hours had flown by. The Indian winter was slowly making its presence felt.            A number of auto rickshaws stopped beside us as we walked, but we shook our heads in unison and they left muttering a few incomprehensible word...

  They were all in sepia,  Mountains, roads, causeways and bridges,  In a pile beneath the dusty carpet,  Left behind for me,  They lay calling out in muffled voice.  A motley crowd,  not all in black had assembled,  An unassuming casket and a sprig of lavender,  From the mailman to the mayor all had come,  A family had born where strangers were,  A sombre tone had settled there,  The train’s on time and the office is still at nine,  Phones ring and buzzers pressed,  The click of heels never cease,  But for now,  let’s pause,  Be silent and mourn.

  A puddle of uniformed identities,  Staring at black and white knowledge,  Eyes, some eager, some drowsy,  Trained to limit their vision to within the walls of the class,  Never straying beyond the panes of the window,  There is a chink at the corner,  And the world tries to sneak in unmindful of the sharp shards of glass,  It is shunned and tagged a “distraction”.  Here and there often of a brain cracks and leaks  Redolent imagination that indelibly stains wherever it drips,  It is promptly swept away using the dry papers from weighty tomes.  No one moves,  Bulbous eyes faithfully follow the trail of the white chalk,  The clock ticks and a bell rings.  The puddle of uniformed identities muzzle their senses and file away  Towards a repeat of today.