After Maidan Garhi

A Collection by Akhil Katyal After Maidan Garhi Night sounds at Safdarjung Tomb How rivers cross their cities After Maidan Garhi everyone grows thornsto protect themselves. Under your feetthe stonesare no longer stonesbut foothills land isunintended cricket fieldsthen dustthen leopard pugmarks. This is the desertsigning you in slowlythrough kikar’s checkpost. They call it the devil […]

Metro-Nome-Love

Metro-Nome-Love Agla station — KASHMIRI GATE — haiNext station is — KASHMIRI GATE Rini and Shammi’s luscious prophecies slip out of the speakers overhead,and I am caressed gently out of a drugged dream by spurious sounds. As the rich timbre of moving metal returns, I adjust my seated body— straighten, stretch — and look about […]

Habits

A Collection by Abhijato Sensarma Habits On Seeking Out the City A Language I Could Only Speak with You Habits You are a habitwhich has overstayed in my headlike a nicotine rush that no longer arriveswhen I puff on a solitary cigaretteat a chai stallinstalled in an anonymous corner of a busy streetwhere the city […]

Arrival

Arrival under the susurrus on tin plated sheetsi stand listeningto the southwesterly windshowling hymns to the land of the belovedto the splashes of sleazy raindrops echofrom the inner chambers of the prayer hallto the still water in the cisterns disturbedby hands being cleansed for ritual banana leafs careen laden with ripe fruitsgolden with delight at […]