One Evening

When One of the Strangest of Things Was Normal and One of the Normal-est the Strangest

It’s strange this holiday at home

There has been no power cut
Except there where the waiter who said he cannot serve tea
The light was too weak to run the tea-maker,
There has been no bomb blast in the locality till now
No murder if not for the sporadic killing here and there
Should I confirm I landed on the right place?

I do remember I had booked the ticket for home a week ago
And I got the ticket stub in my souvenir bag
It’s strange this holiday
Yet as always the police dogs are out on the street
Sniffing around for unsuspecting balls and pussies
Carrying trendy guns sponsored by their hard-task masters
But then again the gaudy decoration lights have covered up
In and around Kanglapat and Keishampat
In the name of turning a shithole into a paradise
And the workers are painting the streets black and white and yellow
And the contractors are selling their dreams
And all I can do is to make a graffiti
About the government always smelling of excrement

And the extraordinary mundane affairs of our lives
Like public transport department staff stealing millions of money
The ceaseless arrest of armed rebels
The overlapping general strikes called by civil organisations
The killing of natives in mainland India
The street demonstration against the authority’s apathy
The ambushes that have been a pain in the armies’ asses
Kangaroo courts and mob justice
I have started seeing them in the background
It’s started getting clear now when I’m sober
And it’s not strange anymore
It’s strange no more
I’m home!