A poignant ballad, by Anika, about the pain, sufferings, ennui and the indifference – all a part of city life. An effective satire, exclusively for Different Truths.
A happy day:
I stood at the airport waiting.
Drowning in an overwhelming uncertainty.
And for a split second, I viewed myself,
an epicentre of a corona discharge of negative emotions bustling all around me.
I looked to my right.
A woman leaning over the railing: a sight exemplifying sleek contradiction of overt and covert intents.
At first glance, the railing seemed a demarcation of the greener grass.
The Mecca of a traveller.
The destination.
The end of his arduous journey.
Ardent desires.
an indication of the finish line at the other side of which lay adventure, amusement, bewilderment or even comfort.
but the pacing, anxious fidgeting of the woman told a different story.
Her hands clutched onto the girth of the railing.
With dread or expectancy- something hard to ascertain.
Both holding within them the gnawing element of change embodied by the person who was to enter into her cosmos.
An alien species with a hint of evolutionary familiarity.
A being that was to
perish.
Thrive.
Or take her entire world by storm.
And so lay the motionless steel rod there.
Suspended in mid-air.
Separating her from the known and unknown.
Her last milestone as she stood before the threshold of change.
The grand beginning to her pitiful end.
And so,
I soon look to my left.
There stood a family of 4.
A girl of 13 stood in an almost catatonic stupor, induced by the rampant stimulation of her phone.
A boy touching 17.
Fixated.
Probably carrying out the empirical calculation of the net displacement of the sway of the woman’s hips alternating in front of him.
Pure innocence with a dash of genius, I tell you.
Next were the sideshows.
The perennially forgotten dependants.
The parents.
At the brink of seniority,
often interpreted as senility
by the selfish minds of their off springs.
All four hand cuffed to their self-fabricated
trials.
Tribulations.
Anxieties and miseries.
Their souls caught in the brief of their attention spans.
As they sacrifice love to reach their sick and twisted ideas of full potential.
A round of applause echoed in my head,
the spindly arm of a typical ‘white’ loving Indian arose
a toast, ladies and gentlemen.
Imitation has been perfected.
Welcome us, the Indian firangis.
And by the looks of it,
I think we’re here to stay.
At last, disgusted
I rushed to the entrance of the airport.
My eyes fell into those of a driver.
Sitting in his car.
Motionless.
My first reaction of absolute horror
was soon overcome by indifference.
As he seemed to be of next of kin.
With glassy eyes, unbothered and exhausted.
A demeanour that rejected the present but held no anticipation for the future.
Happiness and contentment overwhelmed me, the first time that day.
And so I lit a cigarette.
Sat in my car.
And drove away.
Picture design Anumita Roy
#Happiness #Motionless #Poem #Horror #HappyDay #Storm #Desires #DifferentTruths
Anika Ghei is 17 years old and is currently completing her class 12th. She is an avid reader and loves to travel. She enjoys watching spoken word poetry and occasionally attempts to perform these. She wishes to major in English at college next year and hopes to continue writing through it all.
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