Root

Walking down the smooth lane

Of big cities I still feel the country air

That I have left a decade ago in my face;

The dead dog by the road side

Reminds me of the lizard we used to

Throw stones at and kill under the trees;

I could smell the cowdung in the exhaust

Fumes of vehicles running past me;

I have brought with me all those smells

And fragrances the dead lotus and morning

Flowers give to stay alive in this pell-mell

Of hate, robbery, hunger and ugliness;

I have in me the scent of my mother’s womb too

To beat the stench coming out the rotten

Blood of the beggar woman ran over by a bus;

I have to live to keep alive to feel the soil

When I pace the marble floor of the flat

And wish I should not have been born there

To stay alone and get humiliated here.