A Digressive Obituary
Roy Lazarus
22 April 2010, 10:32Here lie the remains of Afeem C.
another ordinary Indian
succumbed to the elements
he inherited from his father
without cry or question
the day he was conceived
inside a dimly lit hovel
overlooking railway tracks
strung out to dry and indifferent to
the cries of his twelve year old mother
Bano, cornered at last
and penetrated in every possible orifice
by his father Akhtar
a sweeper of unknown pedigree
a regular attendee of Friday prayers
in his checkered lungi and skull cap
and the subject of an unpopular couplet
in Urdu extolling the remarkable abilities
of his phallus, a travesty of Faiz Ahmed Faiz,
composed by his friend Suleiman
puller of rickshaws
soon after the conception of Afeem C. –
he who liked to stick his tongue out
at the people in the trains as they
passed him by but no one noticed
and he learned to sing the latest songs
from hindi movies but no one
noticed this either and so he
filled them up with profanities instead
and this won him many friends
through the length and breadth of the slum
and they threw stones at each other for fun
and the luckiest of them
ran after empty rubber hoops
discarded from bicycle wheels
pushing them along with sticks
this was the royal ride and Afeem C.
the most capable rider of them all
but this was soon forgotten
when he had to go to the city to work
aged thirteen, puny of build sharp of tongue
and he soon discovered the many wonders
it had to offer and he worked hard
to save seven rupees for the ride
every weekend in the overcrowded metro
from Connaught Place to Chandni Chowk
when he could press the breasts of
fresh faced fair college girls
and slink into the background
but he very soon grew tired of this
and for twenty rupees one night
buggered a scared Nepali girl
in a shack in G.B. road
overlooking the railway station
his life’s destination
since he was conceived
but she didn’t cringe like his mother Bano
instead she soon grew to enjoy
the whole act, although
this was not enough for Afeem C.
who closed his eyes and thought
in rapid succession of the pretty receptionist
who sat across from his chai shop
then of Katrina Kaif a hindi movie actress
of unknown talent and finally of
that dreadlocked Israeli girl dressed in
harem pants whose grandfather had been called
a schweinhund before being gassed in Auschwitz
and whom he had hoped to impress
with a quick hand over his oily hair
and who would, unbeknownst to Afeem C.
take his picture and upload it on facebook
captioned “annoying dancing indian”
and her friends would all comment on it
but theirs was not the only lives he touched
and as he erupted deep inside her
something touched him back
from the other side perhaps
and he withdrew in remorse
sobbing to himself in a corner
much to the surprise of the girl
who regarded him with great regret
for she had not come yet
but the tears would dry soon
and he would walk the length of the tracks
the sole witness to his life
not with any intention of
being dashed to pieces as he later was
but not with any intention at all
and feeling himself grow heavy with sleep
all of a sudden, lay down to regard
the strange asymmetry of the stars
whom the couplets of his youth
had sought to glorify
and in them
he found no voice
just a mute indifference
to the rumbling
now
tearing
down
upon
him.
