THE CITY FIGHTS DEMENTIA*

Those ancient buildings

in the city streets-

rusted memories of

centuries washed away.

They are occupied by

mice and little men together.

Would they be hanging around

in corridors of silent night hours-

those who galloped in memories

of the city's bygone past,

spurting blood and sperm?

They would exhale

in the labored breath

of asthmatic inhabitants.

They would limp ahead

in the staggering feet

of the arthritic.

They would become

the subconscious

in fleeting memories

of the schizophrenic.

Beyond the narrow streets

are the regal highways of power.

Those who pursued wild hunt

among ruined habitats,

foreign faces of invasion,

they remain in safe recluse

of painted pictures on

the walls of protected palaces.

Terror of the mighty,

condescension of the queen mother,

sacred mantle of advisers,

beaming smiles of the beautiful,

young lads of royal blood,

lavish scenes of justice dispensation,

imperious meeting of the wise,

haughtiness of the commandant,

hidden eyes of the traitor,

bowed shoulders of the natives-

all are jostling in the paintings.

Would they be wrangling,

during night hours after

the din of tourists,

on conquests left incomplete?

Its not in regal highways

but in narrow streets and

sad facades of painted lives

that the city fights dementia.

*(Written in memory of a trip to Kolkata. Unlike other metros in India, where the cityscapes create slums and forgets the past, Kolkata seems to keep the past in tact: you enter a narrow street right from the highway and, in a moment you are right in 18th or 19th century, nothing changed much, those multi- storied Victorian buildings standing tall, exuding smell of antiquity, still fully occupied. Kolkata was the capital of British- India. Here antiquity is not a matter of experience-in-imagination, it's just a tangible thing.)

(ദേശാഭിമാനി വാരിക 24-04-2013)