Aritra Chakrabarti

Darkness. Out in the distance A morbid pile of motley waste- Refused and forgotten. Time piles on And the pile grows too. Often at night it looks back At the world where it once belonged. One item at a time Refused by one at a time. They all meet there. The pile greets them. They all live there And they learn to care. Care that they were denied. They were too old Or frayed or out of fashion. Here they have no use. Here they needn't have one. They all pile up. Out of use. After ages of looking at the world The world never looked back. But tonight the world stares. Why do they see smoke Spiralling up from the pile? Dark clouds of smoke. Tonight the pile will burn Tonight the pile will breathe. Tonight the eyes will bleed And tonight the world will recede.

Countless faces everyday Moving with another nameless face To places where dreams are rolled In pieces of paper to be burnt to ashes By the end of the month. The ceremony of drifting To and from the workplace. Some with vigour and some with pain Some with hope or utter disdain. They move on till the end of the month. Another month rolls in like the local train Crowded, sweating, gasping for fresh air In the distance he hears a copious refrain Seeping through the gaps of hopeless walls of bodies In the beginning of the month. Amidst the toil and the ritualistic drift His universe defies universality As he moves towards a dream wrapped in silk Which he keeps in an impenetrable vault Where neither the crowd, nor the aching back nor the sweat can reach. His month begins and his month doesn't end As his time is paused till his own time he launches And launches himself on its waters Riding with the breeze in his face And the su