Even in the over-crowded city, there is a possibility: a touch that gives birth to an extraordinary poem.
Some illegitimate thoughts
On my way to work, from the comfort of my car
I pass by certain individuals who are together parked
Back to back wrapped up in their thin blankets
Catching the last elusive moments of sleep before the day’s racket
In the evenings when I walk back to my place
I can see them selling balloons all over on the streets
In groups of twos and threes
With young children running around and old people weak in their knees
All of them working with a single-minded dedication
Some food in their stomachs their highest point of elation
I look at them and then look away
After all, they are not me and I am not they
I eat the choicest of foods, have rented a flat in a high-rise to stay
My child has everything he could ask for, books to read, toys to play
They roam around on the streets little food to eat no roof under which to sleep
Their children, some as old as mine, some younger, some elder, all adding up so that its declaration of 100% enrolment in schools, the nation could continue to meet
These children neither have books to read nor toys to play with
They have their share of fun and laughter and merriment though, childhood written all over their faces
Anyway, these unnecessary digressive thoughts should not be mine to concern with
There is so much of importance going on around that I need to be up with
And so, as I said, I look away
Back to the newspaper in my hand in which there is on display
A picture of the ‘Statue of Unity’ standing tall and high
I busy myself with admiring its beauty and its resplendence, after all, my thoughts need to be legitimate and approved of; Before today’s ‘truths’, isn’t all else only a bunch of ‘inconsequential lies’?
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