Rains In Mumbai Central

The last year it was here,
that the little boy going to Monday school
in neat white and blue
suddenly got sucked under. The police waded in,
pitched a red ribbon that glowed DANGER
while water whirled around
like Andromeda light years away.
But it was here. The telephone wire
waiting so long to fall, anyway fell.
And with it, the rusted electric pole
with all its wires tied like the tousled hair
of the mad woman who lived in that Mahim
drain. That left a hundred dead
who were trying to get home,
walking on water. We thought things
Would never be the same again.
but it was the same thing
and death , no wonder.
We needed the rains bad, like the slums needed
that flood upon their sleepless heads.
There it was.
The world as usual, back in
and upon the local trains.
The sky grew bright again on Juhu beach
the sun now had Amitabh Bachaan’s face
bearded all white. And the mad woman of Mahim
she had changed her home
from Mahim drain pipe to the rusted lid
of the dust bin close to Mumbai Central.
But she now wore a school uniform,
of last year, and rode about the busy street
a faded blue knicker for a brassiere,
and stained white monday shirt for her grey head crown.