Now Drexel, act like talking to me..

He banished the stub of that stubborn cigar
A carefully careless hand swoosh
Down the guttural way
It flicked and hit a slow-mo taxi
The driver cursed –an Iraqi face
Who got a wrongly addressed rocket
With tea and morning post;
Well, our hero
Like he could care less!
Lazy nonchalance intact,
Drexel showed his genital finger
In that Texan Cowboy style.

We were fooling around the Ghalib Street line,
Late November sunset harped with her chilly ring tone –
A cacophony cooked up an all consuming bubble,
Rickshaws and feces, potholes and power cuts
Were gathering pace round our sky.

Drexel rested against a lamppost, feet crossed in Filmi V
The cheap drain pipe with soiled white shirt
Exposed the orphan street car that he was.
I, his unlikely partner,
Contrasting Bhadralok
In Punjabi, Jeans and wrapper of a shawl
Somewhere somehow we got this idea
Middle class people feel colder these days.

In my late college years
I had gathered this habit of NGOing around
Enjoying my stint of course
In that Park Circus destitute home.
Drexel was a prominent item,
half-Anglo, little-Goan, bit more-North-East, rest proud-Christian;
But that was debatable too,
For once he told me
That now faded father in his toddler memory
Knelt and twisted while praying on ground.

He was already becoming an intractable rebel
Late nights, alcohol, and punch ups ruled
The better part of his time.
Other vices toed in line,
With his flowing black hair
Was intriguing to the girls.
“I have seen so many of them wasted in my time”
Father Demello nodded his rue full head across the desk.

The searing whistle divided all sleep
Sluggish eyes failing a dimly lit profile
Scuffled down the road,
Till someone spotted the mane,
“That’s our Drexel bhai”, he cried.
“Yes and that’s the Taltola police station’s van”
Quipped another.

They could not keep a convict anymore,
Anyway shelter came in handy
From the local gang who paid his bail.
For days stories abounded on his fate,
Before the years gave them regulation death.
My touch with the Home too ended.
With post-college, and a Delhi job.

“It’s so good to meet you dada”, he smiled
Alas! Could I share that enthusiasm?
His hair cropped short, the eye bags full,
Not much kindness from the orbiting sun.
“What have you been doing all these years?”
It blurted out
Before I could check my spontaneous mouth.
The vacant grin spoke his mind;
“Yes, it’s been a lot of days”,
A quiet soft voice trailed off in the breeze.

The searing whistle divided all sleep
Drexel sprang and cleared me
With one rude thrust;
But some rare fit cops outside action movies
Grabbed and nailed him without much fight.

All this while, I stood transfixed
A decade older seemed my heart.
So it could not protest
When the Inspector screamed
“Also get that one!”

“Wait! That bastard’s not with me”
The Inspector eyed him coyly-
“Then why were you speaking to him?”
“Bastard’s got leaking penis, wanted a loo!”
-came a vulgar crackle,
“And you were good enough to show him one?”
The uniformed man followed in with a smirk.
“Yesss…of course”
A quiet harsh voice trailed off in the breeze.
He put his left hand inside that pocket,
From ten large feet my wallet could recognize me.

They had left ten minutes ago,
The Inspector parting with a
returned wallet and a sympathetic pat.

Come to think of it
There was no need for him to do it.
I could have faced the truth.
Hassled though be it, still the truth.
Come on Drexel please,
Give me that much courage.
Next time even across the street,
Act like you are
Talking to me.