End Of Solitude Poem by Ajit Das

The digital life: before the morning tea arrives,
switched-on laptop, relentless e-mails,
Facebook, Twitter feeds, status updates,
unstoppable, clutter the tiny screen,
their constant connection suffocating
the presence without the oxygen of absence.

Then commute in the non-verbal world:
rushing to workplace in a crowded bus,
jostling for a seat or a standing space,
getting down at the terminus; meanwhile
the cellphone downloading messages –
as if connectivity never seems to stop.

Office boredom now no longer drudges:
computers arrayed on the desk top
clicking without any pause, eyes drooping,
no time to steal a look through the window
or feel when the mid day sun weakening
into setting glow behind the skyscrapers.

A quiet evening over a drink, an intimate dinner,
a rendezvous with friends of forgotten past –
the desire for momentary seclusion fades
in the surroundings attuned to the glare
of videos distracting with pictures combining
sex, violence, death: the tenor of time.