Questions

What are the lines
What's the cue
What am I playing
King or fool
Who's listening
Who's watching
Is this darkness
The one that
Vanishes with the sun
Or the one that
Has known no sun
Is this soliloquy
Meant to bare one's soul
Or the protagonist's
Is this the beginning
Or the end
Or somewhere in between
Are these the questions
That brook no answers
Or the questions
That question questions
Is the heart singing
Or listening
Or both
Am I, am I, no more
Or here, there and everywhere 

A city of memories

The city left behind
Sneaks up on me
When least expected
It seems the aroma
Of its evening mutton stall
With its heavy metal music
Can travel miles
This street could be the one back there
Where the temple chariot
Encased in a tin shield
Hibernates before the next festival,
When the god sets out for a wedding
He can never attend, year after year
Steps into the river that hardly stirs ---
Then we dreamed of floods
Turning the water salna brown
Filling the sand bed, bank to bank
Keeping off the causeways the crowd
Come to watch a river flow