The bungalow has been sold
and in bits, bulldozed.
Soon the trees will go
and hastily put together
tin roofed rooms
will be home
for a year or so
to labourers.
Their babies will sleep next to rubble
their children will play with debris.
they will work long hours
some will get more frail than
they were when they built the previous
luxury condos.
Their stifling rooms
will get hotter in summer
colder in winter
the floors muddy in monsoon
and they'll continue to build
homes for you and me.
We'll take loans
to live on the twentieth floor
far from views
of homes like theirs.
We'll pay these loans
for the next so many years
to live the life we want now.
They will sing as they build our dreams
and perhaps laugh at our need for so much space.
In the square meters that held the bungalow
the mango trees, the rain tree, the champa and neem
hold memories of another life
and we wait for ours.

Mr.Subramaniam is at Coffee House,
sharing a table with two gay men.
On his right the table meets a window and on his left
these men.
He's stuck.
Aiyoo, he thinks,
his face expressionless.
'How to get out?'
Do I say 'side please?'
'Excuse me sirs?'
'Should I simply push my way?'
'What is this generation coming to
publically holding hands and all!
Why they have to come and eat breakfast here?
Why they can't go to Koshy's or something?'
His forehead, with ash and vermilion,
gets three lines as he sighs.
'Sir, please move', he says.
One of them makes way.
Mr. Subramaniam leaves.
The couple, they
continue to laugh, hold hands and munch on toast.