The city

In dingy alleys that smell of people,
In crowded streets where every inch is a battle,
In narrow roads where the sound of a motorcar resonates
before another dies out,
In the metros that race past the windows,
Lie stories, weaved in and out
enmeshed like a web,
skillfully laid down for a prey.

In the electric wires that criss-cross
the havelis of Chandni Chowk,
In the shops that line the Jama Masjid,
like an adornment, well suited,
In Regal cinemas, studded by fancy lights
from the tall white buildings of CP,
In the narrow lanes of Nizamuddin
that smell of athar and rose petals
drenched in the sound of the qawwali,
In the convoluted roads that run in all directions
near the parliament street,
in the saffron flags that embellish Kalkaji,
there seems to flow a river,
that brings with it the silt load
of an entire history, written and erased.

In rickshaw bhaiyyas who strain to pedal,
In shopkeepers who refuse to bargain,
In auto bhaiyyas who say
"what difference does a ten rupee make",
In  masked faces that cough every now and then,
In women who devoutly pray inside the metro,
turning their faces towards the Kalkaji mandir,
In happy children who sleep under flyovers,
In the slums that dot the city carelessly,
In the smiles of Farman and Rufaida,
to whom the country is as foreign as it is their home,
are wielded weapons of comfort,
an assurance that shields.

In Ghalib whose poems, buried in the stories of the land,for whom Dilli was the life of the world,
In Zafar, who laments the loss of being bereft of two feet land,
to let himself melt into the soil of the city,
In those numerous shayris that
sing of love and loss,
lies a city,
which like an intoxicant,
pulls the lover closer.
Which like a poet,
makes out of you a poem,
written with love,
written with pain.