She

Its 10 pm.

Isn't it time for her to sleep. Where is her mommy to tuck her in, to sing that lullaby?

Sleeping is a far cry from where I see her. She is buzzing, but she isn't who she seems to be. At a glance you feel she is wrapping up for the day and the next minute she is in business. She looks naked to me. At this hour, I would expect her to be in that state of splendor. Its common sense, people say.
But she seems to be begging to hide her sanity. The metal veils come and go, sounding like an almost well composed symphony to my sullen ears. It is like a momentary curtain on that gorgeous body of hers.

The stripes and the crossings on her body, skin of that that wretched animal from the Savannah, succeed in sheltering her femininity, but only at those strategic places. The Sparkling jewelery she is wearing glitters in an occasional yellow with streaks of red to add to that sensuous feel of the night.

She is still again. I do not know if its the chill of the late November winds or the fright of the next approaching client which benumbs her. The contours of her body curve gradually. Curvaceous! that is the word! They guarantee a celestial high and a infernal low every single time. To mortals and immortals alike.

I see her being tamed everyday. I have seen her on many a warm summer nights, on rainy evenings when the world locks themselves in. The rains tear her apart, but she doesn't seem to mind it, but somewhere for all of us it means looking forward months of misery. She can catch a cold, cant she?

She gets abused 7 days a week. It feels like she calls out to me all the time. She cries her heart out, but her screams get lost in the deafening silence that Mumbai is. There she lay in front of me, a symbol of transient beauty unmatched. She was told that it was her calling to bring worlds together. and like an innocent child of god she believed she could bring all those men together. Alas, those very men, raped her of her innocence.

Now she just pleads for a better life.


She is the 'Road' outside my home.