The City, Evening, and an Old Man: Me

I've taken the last  drag

and stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray,

and now I'm a respectable man

with all the trappings of civility.

When I'm on vacation

I don't hate anyone.

I don't have  any protest march to join.

I've drunk all the liquor

in the bottle marked

FOR DEFENCE SERVICES ONLY

and thrown it away in the bathroom.

That's the sum total of my life.

(Like every good citizen

I draw the curtains across my windows

the moment I hear the air-raid siren.

These days it isn't the light outside

but the light inside that's dangerous.)

I haven't done a thing  to deserve

a statue whos unveiling

would make the wise  men of this city

waste a whole busy day.

I've been sitting in a corner of my dinner plate

and leading a very ordinary life.

What I inherited citizenship

in the neighborhood of a jail

and gentlemanliness

in front of a slaughter-house.

I've tied them both to my convenience

and taken  them two steps forward.

The municipal government has taught me

to  stay on the left side of the road.

(To  succeed in life you don't need

to read Dale Carnegie's book

but to understand traffic signs.)

Other than petty lies

I don't know the weight of a gun.

On the face of the traffic policeman

doing his drill in the square

I've always seen the map of democracy.

And now I don't have a single worry,

I  don't have to do a thing.

I've reached the stage in life

when files begin to close.

I'm sitting in my own chair on the veranda

without any qualms.

The sun's setting on the toe of my shoe.

A bugle's  blowing in the distance.

This is the time when the soldiers come back,

and the possessed city

is now slowly turning its madness

into windowpanes and lights.

(Translated from Hindi  by Vinay Dharwadker)