I ran to the door, hearing an infectious laugh
sometime this year, days shy of constituency polls.
Drenched with sweat, a band of women campaigners
ask me to pledge loyalty to an inaccessible flower.
Their bangles jingle, as they pass slips
with names, numbers, and polling address.
Soon as they left, my conscience weighed double my weight;
I should have wished them luck before they took that test!
I know the woman next door whose wages won’t buy her a roof;
I pass by the plots sold for 50,000 without any papers of possession
and yet, the giggles of merry campaigners ring in my ears;
I should have been pleasant.
Post result, the giggles turn into sirens
Land to be cleared in two days’ notice.
The encroachments near the dump yard
razed one by one—in the stealth of the night?
Didn’t the news travel even a few metres?
Cries need gate pass to enter ears
but as I was saying, I should have been pleasant.
Shreyashi Mandal is a research scholar at the department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University. Her habit of jotting down events, dreams, and emotional outbursts gradually takes the form of verses. Her poems have appeared in Third Lane Magazine, Miracle Monocle and The Blahcksheep.