Poetry: Pink Lipstick

I put on a pink lipstick and curled my hair

Wore my heels and slit in my skirt, without a care

Chin up and chest out, I walked towards the ac cab

“Ooooh the traffic”, my senses vibrating

Didn’t matter really, I was in the 1% slab      [1% people who paid income tax in India]

I scrolled for bits of news, looked at some twitter

Checked the time & cursed at the Dadar litter

Working in a ‘prestigious’ corporation

I am the upper caste middle class ambition

who praises modernity and vouches for equality

Just before dissolving into my vanity,

My eyes fell upon a despicable old woman

Shrouded by poverty and bespoke of filth

Ideally my attention should have given her its silt

But I just happened to sit and stare

Hoping she wouldn’t see me in an avatar

That is probably of an alien who’s raided her world

Holding on, I kept at it – feeling pity, my eyes ajar

She slided her glance and looked directly at me

Incase she could, in my heart, see

Ashamed and guilty, I looked away

Dare not to look out, my head would sway

Tears of humiliation trickled down my cheeks

As I asked myself, so what if the GDP peaks!!

That woman spoke no words and yet

She sang a saga for millions of us

Only if we listened through our hearts at times

Stopped the drama, chucked the fuss

She sat still as a stone

And yet sent chills down my spine

I imagined the reality of her and me standing in the same line [The idea of India – Constitutions confers us political equality – the line to vote where all irrespective of class or caste stand to cast the vote which has equal power]

The mirage of equality shattered, the illusion of privilege knackered

my arrogance and pride put into place

by who, the one who probably had little solace

I screamed in my head and felt enraged

My heart was conflicted, my spirit was caged

She brought down the shining India in one glance of an eye

Do I exist as is, or a stigma of a reality?

I sat in the cab numb and stooped

Low enough and yet to continue

In the dream of a glass building

Making graphs & sending emails undue

Silently ignoring the voice that stood witness

to the paltry of many, and the abundance of few

Sleepless nights I tossed and turned

Wondering if a poem could be churned

To call for attention and to seek some life

In the lifeless concrete and relentless strife

Of making it big and having it all

Of paying those bills, and delivery on call

Of playing up such passions, that compete like rats

We’re human, there’s richness of emotion

Is it okay if I don this hat?

Stuck in a vicious loop, the questions never seem to end

Somewhere as I type, the letter begin to bend

As my eyes narrow and my heart starts to sink

No use of lips that red and those so pink

If they don’t smile to those who need it the most

Those in the middle of deserts or waters far away from the coast

I forever ask myself, where do I begin

Do I continue to shun or blindly sign-in

Those eyes will never leave my sight

Perhaps, their powerlessness was their might

Answers to these questions may forever remain obscure

I am relieved I could ask at the least, if not endure.