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'Local'ly Mumbai!

The triangular holders in the train clink incessantly,
Everyone is headed back home to their kin,
My bored mind searches for a new story,
That's where my voyeurism kicks in.

I look curiously at the average Mumbaikar,
Half of his body is out of the train,
One of his arms wrapped around the steel pole,
His hair dried by industrial bane.

He looks a decade older than he actually is,
His wrinkled face, a sign of his hard life,
What must be the reason for his plight I think,
Ill parents, deceased son, or an ailing wife?

His hair flutters in the dusty wind,
His torn shirt bears so many stains,
Wonder how far he has to travel everyday,
Walk how much, change how many trains.

He looks meekly at the outside world,
At the skyscrapers springing behind the slums,
His heart leaps to be on the other side,
God knows when his time comes!

I'm jolted back to reality,
When my station comes near,
I'd better stop staring, I think,
Before people think I'm perversely queer!

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