Samaypur it was called. The place of time.

The student visited it with articles in his eyes, Inverting the structures of Dimensions, the dimensions of Structures. In between the hardworking huts he found a truant dangling his feet in the river who could've been subverting hegemony.

The government official visited it with the census clipboard, recorded what he could've been finding. Literacy rose, some huts were repopulated, but not overpopulated, especially among the castes on the Scheduled side of the pond.

The tourist visited it with hi-res camera and chlorine tablets, relied on its hospitality and recycled its cliches. Would remember a genu-wine tenth century temple and not the face of the urchin pointing it out, who relieved him of a wad or two.

The social activist visited it with a video crew and a rolling-pin, rolled up her sleeves and pitched in. The women discussed it in early morning hand-pump vernacular- good when working was the verdict, but a bit of a pain when she opens her mouth.

The headman, chewing reflectively, rocking back and forth on his haunches, waits for the sun to sink, the smoke to rise and congregate, the stories to tell themselves into question, over tea and coca-cola. Coke better in this season, upon consideration. Spits; a paan-stain shaped like a comet glistens, the sly last light winking before it dies in a last desperate secret.

"Kuch toh samai ka khayaal rakho!" his wife will say when he returns.

Par Samai toh apni hi khayaal rakh leti hai.

I am always watching.
Peering through windows, peeping around the side of the house, even a flash of a glance out across the street before I collapse into bed and turn out the lights and pretend that was what I wanted to do.
Watchful, waiting, convinced of disappointment.
And what else should I deserve, to what else will I give credence when it happens ?

If I were now to display the badges of my empowerment-
to flip fresh-cut hair, wear the come-hither and let lilting, hearth-warming laughter fill rooms-
Would they believe- and would I believe- that I was secure ?
But then,
I know that when the world meets my stare with interested eyes,
I blink, long-lashed, abashed.

one girl, missing.

Where o where has the little girl gone ?

Empty seat and tousled bed
Shake their heads, it's worrisome.
Let's worrisome.

The doll's hairbrush just smoothed her hair,
The pins were dropped- now she's not there.
No, she wasn't just hair.

A little lamp has toppled down,
The pen and exercise-book frown.
So small the girl, so big the frown.

Window is open, door is shut,
She cannot go out, cannot soar up.
She tried, but she didn't go up.

for D.

They reach a circle, encircled by the path, walk away in different directions, meet again on the other side, at the same time, sometimes even in step, which she loves. which reassures her.

Sitting there, he talking of mountains. She asks how people live without beauty, the utterly external kind. He says they don't, don't have to. "That's why photographs- I want to make them see it, the beauty in ordinary, real things." She watches him, both still, his chin against the light. She wishes she could.

They walk back in complete silence. Her footsteps irregular, a slow, deep, crunching on crusty tarred road; his steps light, regular, firm, with a whisk of jeans-legs against each other. She wonders if this quiet is uncomfortable- She cannot be, she never is.
What can she do ? He is beneath her skin, embedded close to the bone.

The thunder lilies are massacred.

Severed sunshine heads loll on the grass.

And then the rain comes and stomps them in the mud.

When they are brown, like old blood, you will not even notice.

A cellphone is ringing.
Buzzing on the table, against the table, and screaming stereophonic.

Shall I pick up ? she asks, simply,
It is the only one, and perhaps will be for a long, long time,
Perhaps forever.
Though it hurts, I know it hurts.
I am alone, not lonely but I might be.
And not a message. This call or nothing.

The phone plays on her nerve, trouncing nasally on a note,
Sounding in her brain-
She thinks of cold nights and the fear of herself.
Of pitiful anger, aimed at nothing.

She steels herself and picks up.

I do not want to beg
For emotions.
To stand at the door and look
Timid, eager, perhaps a little guilty,
And knock. And wait.

And how much good would it do
Anyway? -Would you notice,
Look up from your scribbling
One impatient moment,
Or raise a hand to wave me away,
Or look inquiringly-
Polite but hardly interested-
and wait for my question ?

Does it matter ? I smile at myself;
Would I not rather
See you from the door than not at all,
Happy that something so interests, holds you;
Feel a need that needs no answer, holds
No pride, and so, no shame ?