Ruminations, What Does Daruwalla Keep Ruminating? Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Daruwalla ruminates over the mob psychology
Going by the rumour
Holding them,
Fear and suspense
Lurking in,
Areas placed under curfew,
Police patrolling the streets
And parading,
Having a deserted look,
Shoot at sight prohibitory order
Given,
Doubting Thomases whispering,
Talking secretly
With the Alsatian dogs
Sniffing.

Accident, tragedy, death,
Disease and violence,
The poetic codes of Daruwalla,
The tragedy man
With the books of tragedies only
In his book-stall,
The morgue man
Counting the dead
Or the guard of
The post-mortem house,
The Doongar Vari man,
The hawk man,
The kite man,
The vulture man of
Indian English poetry.

A policeman by profession
Already unsentimental
Beyond description,
A Parsi at heart,
Deriving from the Tower of Silence,
Call it the Doongar Vari or the Cheel Ghar
Upon which they
Place their dead
For the birds of prey
To cleanse forth the flesh,
His is a mythic ice and mysticism
Of ancient Iran
Of the days of Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism
And the Avesta.