V2
When Grandma was just ninety-seven
she wished to travel to Varanasi by the Bullet Train.
We managed to get her seated in her wheel-chair
and before she had recollected the first coal engine
the driver, the coal feeder and the soot in her hair,
the train had blasted 400 km a hour, non- stop;
Grandma excitedly told how a tricycle was brought
in that train at Erode Junction, and a man who rode
in circles had made her head spin. She had doled
out oil and the powder of green shikaki leaves
to the coal man and the driver, and now my journey
to Varanasi will be complete, as when the first train
opened up the Western Ghats, tunnels, lights, echoes
she said, as she passed her wrinkled fingers over her head
there was no soot, not even white dandruff.
2
My little grandson prayed to the street-corner iron- wallah
whose iron box clouded with steam and smoke
passed off as incense.
Maybe this is how we found our Gods.
Grandma in a Bullet rain
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