"this, my dear, is Paradise!"
: the hunchbacked, pushed back, belittled tramp.
a muddied pup, just shy of a rug
peering across his skinny skeleton senses
a mildly muddled melancholic ache
as goes his lore,

"this unquenched land of 'some more'
when the level of the high rise soar,
the city seems to dive some more.
seven pieces of putrid plastic,
sewn together by and for nobility,
seven stages of man consumed,
seven notes of sorrow screamed,
seven days eternally screened.

golden paves, learner's myth
bachelors, masters, Phd
succinctly solvent salesmen some,
some workless workers of woe
all live and thrive with me
on knotted footpaths:
for some, the yellow brick road,
for some, simply home.

morchas and dalaals stirred up into
an ochre sunburnt chutney
over a vada pav, some cutting chai,
that's ration and addiction.
akin to lottery, no skills required,
here's bombay as masses know,
where everything's at a price.
divas & devas weighed
in flesh, gold, plaster and more.

sometime
we'll rebulid Atlantis, they thought,
'Mumbaadevi', the name they sought,
divinity in cold iron wrought.
now this abode spreads like a blot,
what's honor?, all simply bought,
dreams that rot, all dust caught,
we're left with dilemmas for the sleepless."