Summer Melancholy

Walking down the road in the morning,

Glanced my face in the mirror of the speeding car; gloomy , tired

Is it going to be like this for rest of life, dragging myself to nightmares?

But in this frustration, I wasn’t alone

Everyone I saw on the road had the same expression

As if the tired souls are whispering the melancholy into each other

Fifteen kg kids walking like drunkards,

Fighting gravity with twenty-five kg schoolbags on their back 

Men hurrying towards daily jobs ,

Holding lunchbox in one hand and wet handkerchief in other

Women covered from head to toe,

Only eyes peering out of the cloth protection

It is not a religious thing: They are just fighting with sun not to interfere with color of their skin

Students hanging from train doors

Is it just population or we just like to lean on each other?

In those crowded compartments, still business thrives

One blind vendor fights his way through sweating bodies to earn his daily living

Only happy face it seemed, when I look outside, models in the billboards

Selling underwear to gold with their plastic smiles

The train stops at stations and the wave of bodies crash into each other

Coming, going, standing, thinking and not thinking

Lost in the spectacular daily zombie walk of civilisation

As a species have we outlived our invitation?

Sitting in the office, waiting for the hands of clock to arrange themselves in a beautiful angle

So that I can return to my room, I wonder

Who is more lonely : the handrails in the empty train waiting for hands to hold them again

Or the vehicles in the parking lot under the scorching sun