The Changing Face Of Bangalore (A Bustling City In India) Poem by K.S.Subramanian Subramanian

The day remains a millstone
but rolls into years in a flash;
So is it with the changing
face of a city; its face, pockmarked
with concrete wrinkles, has an emaciated look;
blank eyes, defying death, have a
frightening candour; face it if you can,
but face it you must.

Is decay the apotheosis of growth?
The bloom of cradle-like innocence,
ruddy power of a surfer against
mercurial currents and the comatose
stage where hopes and despair are buried
alike in wrinkles; like the matted soil
of a sun-blown river bed.
So is it with a City,
dead in its loins, breathing in spasms.

I have often returned to this city,
as if drawn by a magnet; my eye captured
Its tingling breeze, languorous cold, green
luxuriant canopies, the measured commerce
of Brigade Road and pink youth moving
towards an azure horizon; Shy, introverted
burr of the native; grey cells alive to currents
on the surface and deep down; the obsession
with cradling the pristine green cover;
An aura of peace torn by rare burst of passion;
sparkling humour like early dawn at truant bus services;
power cuts, delicious tongue-caressing cafes,
time at beck and call.

Now the sky is pale, stunned into
disbelief; every inch of space a hub of mammon.
The strain of here and now pacing through
every limb, brick on brick for a wall around
Self, ; burr of innocence browbeaten by
bravura of guile; the aroma of flora and
fauna snuffed out by perforating concrete
making asphalt sting more;
The cover no longer green but vaporous.

A whacky trendiness in fashion shows
ss starlets lend ‘em a spark; hopes soaring
higher than the spires of colleges; a generation
seeking a toehold in the alleys narrowed down
by growth; Hope unseated by despair
In an unending tug-of-war; youth stutter
down the slope like a wounded goat.

With growing uneasiness inside,
Crowds besiege shops of glitz, junk food joints;
Veins crow out the refrain "live for the day,
for beyond its tip is the unknown"
Perhaps a deeper instinct is never to
step Into the beyond.

Death catches up with Age!
But a city ages even in death.