Baggage Claim
no wonder the air hostesses were
all too happy to bring in the food,
all too draped up in the nausea of the
all too overpriced flight branding campaign,
both they and their food,
both boldly smeared in the
hues of on-board advertisement,
all too perfectly coordinated
as soon as the turbulence had hit
and made it a suitable environment
for momentary distortions of
weightlessness and along with it
stomach rumblings to kick in:
on baggage claim,
the tussles were even severe
with the urge to suplex every
rucksack that wasn't ours
but that looked like ours
that came around for the
eleventh freaking time
and with the disappointment of
not getting to do that anyway;
but like they say,
strength is to not stir
as opposed to be stirred;
and so,
we widened our area for hope
to find some form of rest before
the growth hormone in our journey
resumed its flow later that night,
not fully comprehending the fact
that Delhi had bought itself
from all its unfortunate industries
and the surrounding burnt wheat fields
and the combined ache of city traffic
a shawl of suffocating discomfort
that seemed to disalign all
major prospects for march
towards civil sanity:
surely enough,
the heat was on
and so were the shades
of my Pilani downer
when forlorn ghosts had decided to
resurrect and invite us into
oyo rooms, whose walls knew
no definitions of ventilation
and where the laconic ways
of the memory lane had shown
momentary lapses of pulses
before long needed naps
shortened all the hooplah
about the reunion with
ex-hostel mates that had been
four years in the making:
anyhow, it was short lived
and we walked out testing positive
for the despise we had for cities
before an HRTC bus from the plains
to the hills would volunteer to
deliver the curtain call to
the capital land:
