Poetry time

Prose has become prosaic. Time for some poetry now. Well, this is one of my favourite poems. wrote it on a bus ride(29 C) through the by-lanes of Chennai. So here goes -


INDIAN CROWDS


They smell so weird, you say
They smell so exotic, I say

They look grotesque, you say
They are the epitomes of beauty, I say

They are overbearingly affectionate, you say
They have big warm hearts, I say

They chatter incessantly, you say
They are the most interesting speakers, I say

They are dumb beyond words, you say
They are prodigies and geniuses, I say

They make much ado about nothing, you say
They live each day to the fullest, I say

They celebrate every silly occasion, you say
They celebrate the joy of living, I say

They think not twice before conversing with a stranger, you say
They are the most welcoming souls of all in this world, I say

They know not of a word called caution, you say
In god they trust and to him leave the rest, I say

They have the messiest houses of all, you say
Oh! But the most beautiful homes of all, I say

They poke their noses in everyone's business, you say
They are the most genuinely concerned of all, I say

Oh! But they are perpetually surrounded by murk, you say
Oh! But they are the lotus in the swamps, I say

Damn them, they are but brown idiotic Asians, you say
Hail them, they are the great Indian Crowds, I say


----- Shilpa Krishnan