The Megalopolis

.... is where you can die in full anonymity
if you so desire
do not worry
the horns, headlights and headphones
will drown out,
tall pretty photos in shopping malls
will hide your deathly silence,
even if you are committed to a communal death
as an anonymous part of a small crowd
say in an average chawl on fire,
even if you are the poor white tiger
that comes once in hundred generations.

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Tribute to Krishen Khanna's The Dead and the Dying

Let the Painter immortalize you then
while you are dead and rising with a shroud covering your eyes,
or while you in death watch the dying
perhaps playing cards (play the game)
from a weird angle, God's mad pastime.

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For 9/11 and Iraq victims :

(Consider not dying with a big crowd in tall buildings,
who knows your desire for a too anonymous death
turns out to be the weirdest starting point
for killing the wishes of good family people
to die in peace, among friends, not in full anonymity,
if you care that is
for all the pedantic brouhaha about people-power democracy,
globalized disconnectedness, universal connectedness, etc.)




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2/jul/14, Mumbai

PS : Krishen Khanna's The Dead and the Dying, and shout-out for Arvind Adiga's White Tiger