Nothing Happens
by Vandana Kumar
Nothing happens really in this city
Where everything has already transpired
It is night
Nobody is up
Asking questions
Or staring at the moon
The generation that argued
Wanted freedom
Did not fight enough
Suddenly packed bags instead
The little kids in the neighborhood
Are a little too little
Their noises are too basic
The kind that
Children make
Demanding
Crying for food
Or for sleep
The noise of defiance
And angst
Has left the place
The nights are moist
With boredom
And yet it doesn’t rain
No smell of first love
No awkward teenagers asking
Each other out
Talking of movies first
Then plays
Then genres of books
Asking names of favorites
All the while wondering
How and when
To touch each other
The city has only the silence
Of status quo
We know our daily visitors
And our weekend guests
Even though
We ask them to sign in
Each time
At the entrance gate
This isn’t a place anymore
Where rebellion grows under the nails
Like a garden
Where a new strange bird
Sits on a windowsill
Every now and them
One that you keep admiring
As you figure out its name
This isn’t the sort of place
Where magic happens
Where
Fireflies dance
Where the month of July
Could happen at any time of the year
Where it isn’t about its natural progression
Into the month of August
And in the quiet of the night
Love isn’t enough a force here
To overwhelm
The city has its center
And its suburbs
And I can’t tell one from the other
Be Our Guest
How strange that I see
What I now see
So differently!
Once ice cubes melted in whiskey glasses
By the warm glances we exchanged
Across crowded rooms
How odd that I now see our home
As mere house
In perfect array
No longer strands of hair
To tell the tales
Duvets in place
Have deftly replaced
Those crumpled sheets
That made both –
The novice and veteran blush
Gone are the days
When visitors shifted toes
So long was their wait
For us to make it to the door
Beware of my house
Where only
Fine porcelain smiles at you
And the cutlery gets counted twice
Once before you arrive –
Once after you are gone
Killing the Good Bacteria
The weekend would be inconvenienced
We told the children
About the impending pest control
About termite treatment and fumigators
The elder one had no complaints
In that direction
How much more legitimate could a reason get
To abstain from the daily homework drudgery
Much younger than the daughter
The son is at an age when
You can’t, but help question
The status quo
He wanted to know who had given eviction orders
Who gave us authority? He asked
To drive away rodents, ants, cockroaches
To hunt out strange rain insects
Perched on bright lights
On the neighbor’s balcony
We took over forest inspection
Then we crushed every anthill
After precise identification
I tried to reason with him
How termites infested the magic in our story books
How the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ hard bound special edition
Turned to dust
In my much coveted book shelf
‘A necessary attack on imperialism” he quipped
I showed red bumps and insect bites
Dengue claimed lives
In our sub-tropical regions
Son was not to be convinced
Just self-defense he said
We sold gated community apartments
At a premium
These creatures all need asylum
He had the last word
It went thus …
Isn’t being different from us
After all
Punishment enough
BIO
