The city wakes up from nightmares of the day before
To new hopes rising from steaming teacups
And a desperate search for Utopian promises
In crisp unfurled newspapers.
Children polished and bathed
In starched school uniforms
Walk in two’s and four’s
Through the iron gates of paradise.
A mad rush and haste to reach work on time
Is rudely stalled by a rally
Or a bus that has overturned.
Patience is the name of the game you say,
And, you wait.
A little boy with myriad flowers
Raps at the window.
Bare-bodied and frayed shorts
Eyes gleaming like the flowers in hand
Ten rupees for two bunches Sir.
You look away, as you see
A hearse entering the cemetery
And men with downcast eyes
Carrying gleaming fresh flowers
In their hands.
I recognise quite a lot of visual imagery,the kind a viewer tuning into BBC world news footage would momentarily register behind the reporter in the quotidian tableau of what for the viewer is a strange and distant land.Which in reality it isn’t and never was.But that is how such images are commodified and consumed in Britain via the media.The brutal dichotomy revealed between the polished and bathed children in starched uniforms as opposed to the ragged little boy selling flowers.And yet it is that little boy who renders a service by selling flowers to the mourners,which is poignant.
Thank you Louis for appreciation. I loved your well-observed comment.