the sound of India
is a restless quiet,
so piercing it has the weight
of a billion
horns blaring
down the labyrinth channels of my Western ear-wells
It stops you in your tracks.
the sound of India
is a kettle that never stops boiling
a thousand children's high-pitched Namaste
a pseudo-bomb going off in a rickety cobbled street
and no-one blinking
a heavy golden eyelid
it's monkeys screeching blood at each other
the sparking of exposed telephone wires
against a puddle of urine
a disastrous tragedy-in-waiting
that no-one will ever fix
it's waking up at 5am
to a chanting Muslim prayer
it's a garland-adorned tractor howling
Bollywood at you, the driver
stoic and sober
it's an apocalyptic shut-up
the sound of blackest midnight
no possible life behind the grey roller doors
cows, hogs,
limping dogs
the only survivors
staring you down
their heavy heads following your rigor mortis walk home,
the rustle of a lone plastic
bag caught in an abandoned kite string
the heavy thwack of a mallet collapsing a sad fish's head
flattened on to the blood-stained cobbled road
echoing through the
four-storey flats
the disjointed "how YOU?!" "GOOD morning!"
the wrong emphasis, the wrong
time...
it's a symphony of toxic snot hoiks
hurled aggressively up through the trachea
expelled from the nasal channels
out a moving bus window
-- it sticks to the side and
adds to the palimpsest...
the sound of India
is the drunken patriarchy, booming,
"YOU ! FREE ! MY ! HOUSE !"
and the soft gradual exiting of women's chappels
it's the host's Uncle's brother's wussshhh
as he plonks himself on your couch
asking you kindly if you're
married and Christian.
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