Paltan Bazar

(dedicated to that very eclectic and chaotic part of my city..which we call Paltan Bazar.
i had been passing through this part for five years at a stretch and inspite of the noise and the stench..to my  surprise this morning i realised how much i had fallen in love with it...after all this spot..alongwith all the other spots in my hour long journey from home to college had attained so special a significance for me and my ruminations)

broken windows
plywood sheets on merry three wheelers
flies and beggars,
lies
lovers meeting, families departing ;
a harrowed and sweaty tourist lost in the chaos,
a confused new comer gazing at signboards ;

business laces the air, and  pavements.
sweetmeats in doubles-- split shops between split families;

honks and shouts, swears and smiles jostle for space,

a man blissfully sleeps in the shadow of the temple
where devotees throng... but the song of the gong

is drowned in the song of the nearby shops;
songs.... of little girls being defamed.

some yards, and a creek ahead--

a fair skinned sadhu narrates stories of distant lands--while

smeared in the white of the math,

his desi companions sing 'praise be the lord!'

Outside flows a clogged stream of filth

on whose banks sits a daily haat--

presenting life in all its shades--bright ,dark and wane

As an old lady

solitary, half-hidden amidst weeds, in an unkempt garden

perched atop a stone pedestal--

watches on--stone faced

the passage of  time,
 the antics of life flitting its fickle wings...