Two Sides!

I sat on the backseat of the three-wheeler
and it stared at me,
that photo ID
of who sat ahead
in khaki pants and a clairvoyant shirt,
some two streets away from where I stay
“Nagashettihalli”…
Same height, same width, same sight,
I thought,
when the smell of the other side
wiped wind around me aside
and I looked down at my phone
at time that needed to pass…

Charity!

I sat coyly feet together
on the back seat of the auto,
victorious,
having fought with the driver
to run by the fixed fare meter
unwilling to pay any extra…

‘You'll get what you’re allowed’, I had said,
‘Why’re you trying to cheat me instead?’

He had frowned at my language and agreed to my words.

As we approached the signal light,
beggars swarmed, holding the auto tight,
at a familiar clogged Bangalore road,
I was caught by eyes concealing stories untold.
I picked a bunch of coins from my bag
and pressing it on wet palms I said, ‘Go, don’t tag’

As they began retreating to their next window,
a young one came holding wet open palms from a pit,
I witnessed charity then, in real meaning and go,
when the autodriver, placed a Rs. 10 note, “Take it”!

The 'Bajji' Seller!

She takes each vegetable to be cut,
as keenly as words 'for order' from hungry customers,
behind the glass laden push-cart
on a narrow footpath in some narrow by-lane,
and lists quickly,
an iterinary of items to bill,
in the mini-cells of her excel-sheet-less mind
that wanders between its calculations,

onto faces of
women like her
who -
walk down the street
clad in uneventful mind-clothing,
staring questioningly at their 'friends',
yelping in pain and anger or
howling in happiness and laughter -

blaring voices in glaring flames of individuality and independence,
unlike her
and her error prone but mandated-error-less math,

standing next to her husband's brown palms, a few inches away from the piping hot oil,
that takes each vegetable she cuts
as keenly as she does words for order from hungry customers!

She...

squats on her knees,
folds her legs at times
on the passenger crossing ‘sky-walk’
near Manipal Hospital
which I take to cross the road on busy mornings.

And as I crib to myself for the day -
full of silly number matching and nonsensical calls on how to split the very same silly numbers -
that God gives me,

she sits there every single morning,
her white hair strewn all over her forehead, ears and neck,
with moist eyes,
a shapeless mouth that she uses to speak to herself
and
ears awaiting the sound of each dong that little coins would make on contact with the floor before her.

I saw her weeping today, her grandson sitting next to her, consoling her,
as she grabbed the six little coins that I slipped into her coarse palms;
she looked at me, tears in her eyes,
trying as hard as she could
to stretch her shapeless lips to a U, that they could never attain…

I froze,
stopped,
looked away
and
ran,
trying as hard as I could
to un-stretch the inverted U that streams from my eyes found easy to flow through…