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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Urchin in Dr. Radhakrishnan Rd.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Still the din dashes about in his dreams<br>now louder in the spaced quiet: <br>an occasional auto-rickshaw backfiring revving<br>     spluttering<br>too close for chancy comfort<br>some blaring tv hoisted above craning necks</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Over the squeezed out crackling mud sidewalk<br>his head buried in the crook of his charred bony arm<br>his right elbow crusted in a masked-eye pattern<br>his left spindly leg knotted at the knee<br>jauntily splayed in a triangle on his right<br>the mud-soaked sole inturned at the angle<br>as if to cushion the prickly grains on bare scorched skin<br>a defensive gesture against cold dust wind noise pain<br>the slight lukewarm breeze lifting from Marina Beach<br>teasing the settled dust the strangled pores<br>he had for a blanket</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Through the dropped jaw rosy-pink at the bled bitten lips<br>his breath wheezed through stained craggy teeth<br>his broken nose stopped by blobs of bloody phlegm<br>a hovering fly or two keeping undisturbed guard</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">His hair streaked in plaited dusty strands<br>lost in the sidewalk's trampled mud<br>On his loins some tortured rags bound at the hips<br>bulged at the dryblown stomach<br>the nombril unfurled like a budding ear<br>to where the hardly heaving contorted ribs<br>  held the will to awaken<br>the evaporating carcase of a steamy engine at the works</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">He woke to the mocking streaking laughter of the magpie<br>calling out to its mate across the slipping concave-tiled roofs<br>across the dense mango green weighted clusters<br>where they had slumbered for the night<br>to the mangy scavenger dog digging its nozzle in the splodges<br>of decomposing leaves paper and tins larded with leavings: <br>turds dung urine phlegm and menstrual foam<br>that the parched earth gulped during the day<br>to the bluebottles festering on the peeled shin-bone<br>to the hordes of tinkling bicycles piercing his unquiet drums<br>to the buses and taxis top-heavy creaking and near toppling<br> and the sharp clipped voices of servants<br> urgently preparing the exit of their master<br>in a polished limousine through laundered lawns</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Some fifty yards away across the road<br>a low saffron roofed-box of a stone shrine<br>lay crushed and sagging on the tarmac against the mud-sidetable<br>from which sprawled the scaly frame of a dust-throttled tree<br>the garland of mallikai on the dark stubby slippery shrine<br>of a squat Ganesha<br>a hardly flickering oilwick open trough lamp lighting limply<br>other framed coloured pictures of Ganapati<br>two half-empty troughs of kunkunum and vibhuti<br>on the half-opened cicatrised shrine gate<br>traces of twirls of white chalk on the road<br>reminders of mandala and disrespectful feet<br>a bleak reminder to the departed donor's culpability</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">To the boy now awakened<br>looking through dazed poolai-stuck eyes<br>the obeisances of hurrying office workers<br>and the coins they reverently pressed in a cement platter<br>at the saffron-robed shrine's feet<br>strewn with fading frangipani<br>and shrivelling kernel in split coconut-halves<br>all these were on a reel spun high on a screen<br>the lad could neither fear<br>nor partake of the proferred fare<br>his only Right was his right hand<br>stretched long but never touching<br>the deadened fury of his looks<br>softened only by the lowered eyes</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The day was long or short<br>depending on his cavernous gastric growls<br>and according to how he laid himself out in some public place<br>to shut out the important world of poets and politicians<br>shout-shooting around him<br>into the Twenty-First Century<br>towards wild parties and fun-conferences<br> to shore up their sagging petty images<br> to bombs and cars that fly<br> to other worlds won on stars<br> to shrines adorned like filmstars<br>and filmstars adorned like shrines</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Just a privileged lingerer<br>allowed to watch a while the magic lantern show<br>behind burning fearful eyes<br> that dreamt of steamy coco-shavings-crusted puttu<br> a second stomach thunderbread and chapati<br> ladiesfingers and drumsticks<br> pumpkin in hot sambar<br> stringhoppers in coti<br> masala tosai<br>  and a tumbler of buttermilk</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Notes</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=523697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">1.Dr.Radhakrishnan Rd.: Boulevard in Madras (Chennai, India) where are to be found some posh hotels<br>2. mallikai: Tamil for a variety of the jasmine.<br>3. splodges: a blend of 'splotches' and 'lodges' (in the sense of "to serve as a receptacle for") , meaning a great heap of splotches<br>4. kunkunum and vibhuti: Hindus streak their faces with these powders either for customary or religious reasons<br>5. poolai: Tamil for rheum in the eyes<br>6. magic lantern show: a reference from Omar Khayyam's Ruba'iyat.<br>7. puttu, sambar, coti, stringhoppers, masala tosai: Indian Tamil cuisine, usually taken as part of breakfast<br>___<br>(©: T.Wignesan 1993 (January 4,1993) , from the Sequence 'Words for a Lost Sub-Continent' in the collection: back to background material (1993) ISBN 2-904428-11-9 Pub. in T. Wignesan. Rama and Ravana at the Altar of Hanuman: on Tamils, Tamil Literature and Tamil Culture. Chennai: Institute of Asian Studies,2006 & Allahabad: Cyberwit.net,2008.)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=T.+Wignesan">T. Wignesan</a></strong></div>