Moment One
I went looking for Sunday’s house
at the far end of the street.
He wasn’t home. Suffice to say
the man, sporting a palm fibre moustache,
scooted soon as he spied me.
His son, a brat cucumber, wedged open
the door a bit to say his papa wasn’t home.
I saw his wife with shaggy hair from the kitchen
throwing a look in his direction as he fled.
I froze that moment at that point of time
and left. Never went back again to his shack
made of tin sheets painted yellow.
Moment Two
Another day,
walking on the street,
I found the man, with the palm fibre moustache,
cobbling footwear.
Women stood around him
with broken sandals.
The only view he had was of the legs.
He might say that the city is a river of walking feet.
He sat on its bank with a fishing rod.
There may be among them legs that wore
the sandals that he mended.
He crouched so that his dark belly bulged out.
In the middle of it was his protruding belly button.
Spying my feet approaching him,
He scampered up and ran away.
The women standing around him
looked at me astonished.
Chasing someone to catch him is not my method.
Let that moment stay.
He running away from me
and the women stunned.
Moment Three
One day I detect
Sunday, with his palm fibre moustache,
smoking a beedi, seated on the parapet of a bridge.
It wasn’t clear what he was looking at -
the gushing river or
the sky with scattered clouds.
There is a thought at work within him that
seeks to betray his own blood.
He doesn’t know that he is caught in its grip.
I went close and grabbed his shoulder. He looked up
and soon as he spotted me shook off my grip and
jumping into the river swam away till he vanished.
Moment Four
Sunday, with his palm fibre moustache, is
ambling along the street. On his way back from
a cinema. Slightly tipsy too.
He didn’t scurry away when he saw me.
He waited there hesitantly.
I laughed. He laughed back.
Then, all those moments that I had kept frozen regained their mobility.
I drew the knife that I had kept ready
And stabbed his bulging belly.
Soon as I stabbed,
He of the first moment fell down in the kitchen limbs thrashing about.
He of the second moment fell by the street limbs failing about.
He of the third moment stabbed on the bridge toppled into the river.
The man, with the palm fibre moustache, stumbled back stabbed in the street.
We can now hear the screams from the four moments.
His wife with shaggy hair and the brat
Scream from the first moment.
Their yellow painted home screams.
From the second moment, the women who came to mend
their sandals are wailing. Sandals repaired and yet to be, are wailing.
His tools are wailing.
From the third moment,
The stub of the beedi detached from his lips cries.
The bridge and the parapet cry.
From all the four moments,
The man who was stabbed in a single thrust
Howls in his death throes.
Meanwhile,
From his ripped belly flows blood forming a river.
It washes away, in its surging current, me and the people who
witnessed the murder. It carries away all the burdens
of all the shops in the street.
Same time, from the other three moments,
rivers of blood originate and combine
carrying away his house and his tools
and, emptying out this street,
flow down to the river alongside the bridge.
I had to walk alone on this desolated street. I walk by tearing asunder
the darkness and forcing out some light. The blood of that
nice man Sunday flows and flows
till a strip of the calendar
stays all red.
Translation : Ra Sh
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