As he edged closer to the night,
Sun fading in the distance,
Birds beginning to go home,
He stopped for a while on the roadside,
Vehicles, honking, and zooming past,
The road does'nt stop, slows or rests,
He walks a little to a nearby tree in a by-lane,
Awkwardly He sit at the roots as people pass by,
Some ignoring, some curious, some mocking,
He ignores them all,
Its an old tree, the trunk dusty and twisted,
Branches weak and cut to convenience,
Leaves few and far,
what happened to this tree?
He sits again,
There is so much work I have to do,
Why am I wasting time here?
Some people are so lucky,
Why do I always get a hard deal?
When will I get some time to enjoy?
The questions keep popping in his head,
One after another,
He walks further inside,entering a slum,
The lanes are dirty,
Houses cling into each other,
Vying for smallest possible space,
Life seems to be a little slow here,
Stinky, shrill, congested but slow,
Is the slow content?
He thinks while turning back,
Night has befallen,
He walks back to a lonely spot,
Sitting and thinking of his childhood,
A kid looking intently into a Black and White TV,
A barefoot boy scolded for dirtying someone's house,
A small coin constantly protected by a hand in the pocket,
Jumping own wall to play cricket in afternoon sun!
That kid was crazy, he thinks and smiles,
The first real smile in days,
The first free moment in years.....
