DOGS, MOBS AND ROCK CONCERTS

Bombay Diary: April 7, 2003

Sampurna Chattarji

At 7 am today,

a pack of mad dogs rushed into a building and castrated a man.

It happened too fast for the police to be called

or the BSPCA van to rush in and take the raving canines away.

Five dogs came.

Six left.

At 12 noon today,

a herd of hired goons drove up in a truck and threw flowers at a mob.

The mob, which had assembled silently all morning,

pulled the stalks out with their teeth and exploded

in a fury of pamphlets. The pamphlets read

Stay Out Outsiders and then sang themselves into a stupor.

The hired goons were fired

for failing to disburse the crowd.

At 7 pm today,

a stadium flung open its gates to the sky.

The earth rocked and the people stoned.

Enormous rubber lips turned electric blue with the sound.

On the ground, crushed between a dressed-down executive

and a made-up mother of two, an ageing Indian singer

shook his locks. In the champagne seats,

the liquor baron bubbled

tidily out of his tux.

At 7.10, 12.22 and midnight,

the city felt a tremor of longing.

Strange things had happened and passed it by.

Tomorrow all that would mark the hours would be the trains,

the 7.10, the 12.22, the midnight,

each rattling its chains,

returning thousands to their cages,

till dawn.

From Sight May Strike You Blind (Sahitya Akademi, 2007; reprint 2008)

© Sampurna Chattarji