PHOTO MK
Whispers of a scorned leaf
The sky looked like a broken kite,
just as the lone murmurs of the street girl, Paru;
Buses were roaring away;
Automobiles were writhing at the deep impact
they had made on lifeless bodies
Wind whispered a rare mantra akin to a
jungle song in Paru’s ears;
The tentacles of depressed heat waves
were encircling her
amidst the buzz of the city’s unemployed lot
She found succor in the tantric rites of tribes,
their concoctions, blood red garlands and
broken coconuts
In the pay-ward of anguish,
she waited for the birth pangs of yet
another dream
The thirsty moans of the oppressed
got drowned in their own sweat;
as also the wailing of the illiterate
and hapless
The empty bowels had the
hunger of the Panchapandavas
The bleat of the horns of buses
reminded the moans
of those tribal chieftains
who succumbed
to unknown maladies;
The street became deserted like
the frustration of an young girl
Yielding to archaic
temptations of a scorned soul’s
noontime heat,
Paru turned a wild beast
In the street she snarled
at the onlookers;
she boogied forward
on the look out of the killer demon
In the backdrop were whispers of the
scorned leaves which have lost its green
in automobile emissions;
The creeping whispers hung
as a crown on the
monstrous
theyyam dancing just
behind her
MK
