As Mr. Dharmaputhran
the senior-clerk in the Department of X
went out of his Z Apartments re-wound
as usual in the morning
his iron-pressed pure cotton shirt
hooking up to a rusty snag on the door
tore exactly above the front pocket.
But, it didn’t get soiled.

Walking posthaste along the neatly maintained
public pavement
the brand-new imported Brazilian leather footwear put on for the first time not to mark any occasion
skid over yesterday night’s cow-dung
that lay eschewing scavenger’s eyes.
But, he didn’t collapse.

While waiting for the bus
beneath the regular tamarind tree
reading headlines in his favourite morning daily
or brooding over peace in the Middle East and
surely about the aftermath of Globalisation too
a crow defecated on his balding head.
But, nobody noticeed it. 

Just before,
a bulging suitcase in one hand and the lunch-box
a button-press umbrella in the other,
he could catch hold of the handle of the back door,
the conductor of the last bus to reach office on time
gave a double bell to move on.
But, he didn’t sweat.

By the time he reached office on the nth floor
of the fate-shaped building complex wetting
way-worn and thanks to a timely power failure
in the lift, panting, climbing all the steep steps
the superintendent’s pen had menstruated.
But, he was not defiled.

On the way back to the apartments in the evening
after a habitual visit to the department store
to purchase nothing

winding through swamps where garbage and
scraps heap and graveyard’s silence fumes
he saw a psoriatic, old, stray dog
wagging its tail incessantly.
But, it didn’t follow him.