Thursday, February 23, 2006

Mumbai's Roads, Always Under Repair

Mumbai's roads are always under repair,
These roads always on the sickbed lie,
Mumbai's citizens are always in de'pair,
Wondering they live in this city why.

Tar, cement, pitch and sand,
Strew the roads and clog them good,
Bricks pass slowly from hand to hand,
Everything takes twice the time it should.

On foul vapours does the citizen choke,
His face is always streaked with grime,
The dust enters and cakes his throat,
He's stuck in traffic all the time.

And up above the open sky,
Empty but for a lonely kite,
Are there no roads in that universe high?
Nothing in the spaces of the starry night?

7 comments:

Chandrahas said...

Hi Confused - Thanks for your kind words. I will endeavour to lower my brow a little more while replying to comments from now on. But come - I'm fairly polite to even the rudest commenters.

And Kohinoor? What Kohinoor? I'm not much of a Rushdie fan, I'm afriad. The book of his that I like best is the brilliant early collection of essays and criticism Imaginary Homelands.

karmic said...

Nice poem. Found you via DesiPundit. Gosh it's been almost 14 years since I left Bombay, but every time I visit the roads look the same. Its like I am in the same part of a bad movie. There are changes (fly overs) but there always something being dug up. While getting around I have now taken to having something over my air intakes to stop myself from getting my airways inflamed too from the air.
Anyways that Bombay I guess, it take s a certain amount of fatalism or acceptance to live through this everyday which millions do.
Later

Aishwarya said...

*shakes head sadly*

Awful, just awful.

:)

Anonymous said...

not about the current post. the previous one.
effortless writing that makes the reader want to read on. rare gift.

Chandrahas said...

Confused - I didn't read *Shalimar the Clown*. I had a look at it in the bookstore and din't feel like buying it.

Aishwarya - I couldn't agree with you more. That's why I wrote a funny poem about them.

Anonymous said...

well!! what else? good choice of words, excellent imagination and brilliantly written. congrats for putting things in ther right perspeftive. ony wish theconcerned authorities are equally poetic!!

Anonymous said...

I have not been to India in over 10 years, here's an observation from my trip in the late mid 90's. It just so happened that I visited Mumbai two years in a row about the same time of the year. Some road work was going on near the Otter's Club in Bandra. There was a moderately large stone in the middle of the road that I saw the first year - the following year it was still there!