Encased in concrete, with a dying orange above, and the silver turning grey below, the waves crash futilely against the Bandra fortress -I suppose one might, on careful listening, hear steel versus steel again; Boats bob by those decayed ramparts, signs of of an eternal poverty dependent on the wealth of the sea; On open sea a marvel of modern engineering rises - a some triumphant half-finished proclamation of victory over nature; above the clouds thicken, but loosen not as in impudent demonstration of whose writ truly runs; In the shanties of Bandra, in the towers of Worli, and in the middle-classness of Mahim, lights come on one by one - a dying day, a sleepless city.
The message is supreme;
Born in the heart,
and lilting itself
from tongue to tongue,
throwing its scent
over wind and wave;
travelling on dots
or fingers
when blindness
or silence bar its way.
It hews itself into stone
or burns itself onto magnetic discs;
it is the message that lives
and I exist
solely to pass it on.