Alivia Ghosh
The closed shutters have gathered dust
Like unvisited graveyards.
The terraces have grown human heads
The sky looks closer with kite signals
Red, yellow and green,
Celebrating death?
Streets look brighter
In unhorned silence.
Masked automatons in hurried fear.
The array of balconies
Burst in crackling laughter,
Apartment porches hung in dusky kisses.
Celebrating death?
The queue questing for life
Lurks in fear.
Students-policemen
Beggars-vendors
Dalits-brahmins
Aazadi-hindutva
Woven in the untouchable garland of death.
The lonely street
Now scares the rapist
And the nationalist too-
Like women, they too wear the night
On their shoulders
As the shield and the shroud.
The anti-national has waged a war.
Celebrating life?
Walking along the quarantined street,
Passing by the matchboxed windows-
A scoop of the orange sky
Drops on the mossy monsoon street
In resignation.
Like crumbling damp walls.
And the street lies alone
In defeat of an independence.
Silenced-
Are you my humans,
Still celebrating Death?