Snapshot

Curiosity stares through tinted glasses

at railway tracks that glint darker in the sun;

the house crow that pecks on the ties in between

looks only slightly greyer than its shadow.

The diesel smoke and incense mist

lie faintly over red painted benches

that infrequently decorate the station platform.

Glass doored cabinets in miniature stalls

hold jars of hard candy, myriad pan filling

and sugared tamarind sweets to charm the mouth,

brightly coloured foil packets of biscuits and sweetened milk cake

lie sulking on the icebox, liberally filled

with ice cream and badam milk, mishti doi and lassi,

chilled soda in orange, brown, and green,

sealed bottles of water for people to please.

People and more people with stranger clothes and faces

scurry and stumble, then scramble and hurry

up the overbridge and down to platform number four

with sari and suitcase, toddler with a missing shoe.

Cartons of fresh iced fish to be sold a thousand miles away

settle comfortably on the floor of the parcel compartment,

painted blue, like all the thirty and one passenger coaches

tailing the rusty red engine that punctuates the chaos

with sleepy sighs and anxious whistles.

Footsteps and wheels run briskly here,

yet time runs ever slowly still

in rhythm with the ceaseless chant –

“cha~i coffee! co~ffee chai! cha~i coffee!…”