The Boorima Wrapped In A Shawl

Out in the lanes of Old Camac street

Where the roads bend into anonymity

Wrapped in a shawl I see

An old grandma, away from all festivity.

While the city delights, Drowned in ecstasy

Boorima in the shawl lies huddled up in a corner.

Lost in anonymity.

Nobody knows where she comes from;

Nobody knows where she belongs.

The city is busy, The streets fill with revelry

Old Boorima cannot resist the cold

Wrapped in a single shawl

She doesn't protest

For she is too old.

As I step towards her to lend my jacket

She looks up with curious intent eyes

''Son are you back?" She Says"To take me home with you..."

The gleam in her eyes is gone the moment I say "No"

"I'm not your son you see! I'm just concerned about you though!"

She lifts her face and this is all I behold

Wrinkles everywhere

She is very very old

I offer her bread, I offer her food

She refuses instantly,

"All I want is my son," She says, "Can you bring him back to me ?"

"Who is your son ?" I ask "Where doe he stay?"

"I don't know," she says,

"But this is where He left me yesterday."

"Boorima come with me,

I Know a place, you can put up for the night.

And tomorrow you can come back here

To look for your son at this site."

She refused to come, befuddled though at my sudden requests and pleas.

"My son will come, he told me so!"

And refused to come with me

Helpless I had to leave her there,

She refused to come with me.

Next morning bundled up in a corner

I saw that Booriima in a shawl

Exactly where I had left her

But she uttered no word as I approached.

She lay all very still.

'"Boorima! Boorima! Are you awake?" I cried

But Boorima lay very still, not a sound did she make

As I stretched my hand out

A cry held me back

"Arre Babu," the Janitor said," The booriya died in the shivering cold!"

All night She had waited

But her son never came

And the city steeped in revelry

Did not hear her muffled cries!

The Boorima wrapped in her shawl died .. Waiting...

For indeed she was very old.

The Boorima wrapped in her shawl had died...

For indeed she was very old!