Echoes In The City’s Veins

By Rajiv Khandelwal

Together on monotony's dance,

We travel robotically,

Through each metro station,

Until we reach the day's end destination

An old woman, driven by her daughter-in-law

Forced to beg in her twilight years

While her son conveniently looks away

Beside her

The tall banker in his high-priced tailored suit

Is lost in pensive thoughts

Wishes he had given his wife time 

When she had begged for heart to heart conversations 

Emotionally disconnected 

The weight of a possible walkaway wife syndrome

Invades his solitary moments 

With regret

He looks at the old women with a distracted gaze

His thoughts drifting like the ads before him.

United by the hum of steady motion

The daily travellers battling seen–unseen storms

See so much pain around

That empathy itself has drowned  

In their pipe-dreaming 

That each day be a new beginning

Each silently praying 

                                  For mere hand-outs of hope 

Still,

All tiring-tireless souls 

Somehow find tiny sparks of joy 

Beneath the skyscrapers reaching for the stars

And thrive despite spirit-breaking struggles

Within the continuing rhythmic challenges 

Of the city’s veins 

By Rajiv Khandelwal