The Mumbai heat hits like a Tyson punch.
Sweat streaming down the densely-packed bodies of the
Middle-class commuters in the suburban local trains
Halting on long lines that shimmer in mid-May sun.
The A/C whines and whirs, unable to cool
The interiors of the sedan discomfiting the women
Talking Versace and Venice, loud tones, fiddling i-Phones
With dainty hands, wearing stones, waiting for lights to change.
Across the highway, under a lone Margo tree surviving in a huge
debris — dump,
sleeps the frail rag picker… marginal being.
A woman shrouded in unwashed clothes
unclaimed by the system.
Her present bed two fluttering newspapers,
a wrinkled face fanned by the hot wind,
drifting in happy realms, dead to sounds of a manic metro.
