An Urban Bond

by Anupam Patra

My shimmering Goldflake, like our conurbation, defines contrast
sending lazy, grey swirls of smoke
over the silhouette of an urgent populace
an auto-rickshaw scatters warning
for an eight-hour power cut

here everything runs on electricity
water purifiers for the moneyed, cremation for the busy
others in between check dying phones
in queues at the colony tube well;
I’d be reminded to get an inverter like the neighbours
exactly when I’m slipping into an over-worn coat
for which my wife bargained furiously at the year-end sale

some of us bother less about a power cut
than a cut in average temperature
raised by exhaust pipes and coolants,
we negotiate the betrayal of ozone in EMIs

here ambitions snub intuition
in its core, this city is unsure of class
unblemished roads where Audis and Jaguars turn,
bear bicycles on whose pillion, emaciated wives cling
to starched shirts they give their best everyday
their sweat inseparable from this town’s status

here smoky by-product of affluence
is inhaled by lungs indifferent to indifference
here everyone is from somewhere else
toiling to a fault for a Duplex at a prime locale
our happiness leans on uploaded vacation pictures

you’ll not find stain of tears
holding on is an ability we with pride unlearn here
we forge ahead on the conveyor belt of time
here overdone make-up pitch perishable treasures
in malls and other dream shops
which devalue in the congestion of a migrated throng;

regardless, I clamour for this city’s shrinking skin,
own up its risky smoke and heaving streets
perhaps because I rely on its mirror
on the solace of its just reflection
of my forfeitures and mutations

because parity is its soul, second chances−its legacy
addictive are its cycles of void and ecstasy,
here there are no castes or skin colour
from each other’s mugs we drink beer

at the forgotten bank of one of its firefly ponds
where a poem still finds me,
I observe its multitude – curious, worthy of tomorrow
like my city, it flows and turns
its oblivion may be difficult to love
yet its heart is impossible to give up on

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