Human Ware

Dr. Kondal Rao Velchala

O, Madras City!

Night is aperching like the blue-black ink on you.

In the windows of the Mint street buildings

Lamps glimmer like the wish –welcoming eyes.

The traffic swells there.

“The human wares” lilting like the Japanese jades

In the half-dim half-bright houses, fancy shops,

With their bulging breasts

In their half sleeves blouses of cannon-colour

Like the wrappers of “mixture packets”

Sold in ‘Kishen Singh Street’,

Faces laminated with the thick layers of the talcum powder.

A pale smile glistening like a dim-sticker on their bloodless lips.

People of all sorts visit,

“The Gentlemen” too, so called

Hiding their faces underneath their hats.

Students escaping from the hostels,

Theives, drunkards, leaders, pleaders, priests, debauchers

All, to pair, erotically-fare for a rupee or two.

O, human ware!

Are you a waste paper basket to the society

To be so wished by the people

To love them for a rupee or two

To desire, to pretend like an innocent blonde

Falling in love only with them for the first time?

What a self deception they perpetrate on themselves!

I respect you,

See the real life really reflecting only in you.

At all other places everything is only a deception, a drama,

Everything is pretentions and untrue.

The priest,

The chastity of the wife head-bending

As if in modesty and humility,

The Yogis,

All are untrue.

But you, “The human ware”, you are the cold truth

Without a blade of a mask on you,

The pure truth,

Without a shred of a cloud casting a shadow on you.