MULTIPLEX

This poem is about the growing difference between lifestyles of different people in India, which is largely determined by their economic and social status.

That road before the multiplex.
Where spotless shiny cars stroll, on the black and white turf of damber,
carrying passengers as spotless in their appearance, though not in their character,
who are screened from the outside world by the semi-black windows of their cars, only to show their shady and gloomy visages through them.
Huh.. the irony of it. They look more like their real self when they are masked.

That road before the multiplex.
Where high heels and polished shoes walk on the clean and wide footpaths,
probably having their first and only exercise of the day under the shadows of the overhanging trees,
which try to do some justice by dimming the radiance of their faces, which is so contrary to the darkness within.

That road before the multiplex.
Which represents the roads of my state at various levels - newspapers, tv shows, google maps.
Which is the mannequin in the windows of the store kept for all the world to see, luring onlookers for a costly ride.
Which is the make-up done, for hiding the wounds on the face.

But, that road before the multiplex.
There is something more to it, than what meets the eye, a blurred image of opulence flowing in and out of the mecca of lavish lifestyle.
A sharper eye observes in that river of opulence, tiny islands of penury.

The beggar,
whose ragged and torn clothes contrast sharply but yet have some similarity with the ragged jeans, that passes by him.
Whose bandaged arm meets with looks of disgust rather than pity, while the river of opulence rushes past him, ducking him, avoiding him, and depositing sand of alms, in it's wake.

The soda vendor,
who watches from behind his cart,
this river of opulence flow past him, rejuvenating itself with the streams of his soda,
in return giving him ignorance and indifference at the stark contrast between it's luxury and his misery,
but who knows it's better than the contempt and disgust, he will receive, if he steps out from behind that cart and joins them.
Huh... quite a view it is, this meeting of luxury and misery - the trade of one's convenience with the other's necessity.

That road before the multiplex.
Yes, it is the epitome of something in my state.
But not of it's clean roads or luxurious lifestyle.
It is the epitome of the diversity of my state.
Not religious, not cultural but economic diversity.

Reviews

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A highly complex truth, well for some at least, a definte re-readbale piece, well done, good read.