Mute Witnesses

She showed me in, into the room of wonders

Of what's left after the dead are ashes

Rummaged through the blue plastic bags

That once was somebody else’s

A woman’s red glass bangle

A teddy bear with one hand wrinkled

A half worn out cricket ball

And a bus ticket from Andheri to Juhu

As if a story unfolds in front of my eyes

Say dead men tell no tales

And yet in those inanimate things

Was hidden love for all those years

A new bride’s wrist once held this red bangle

And in her doe shaped eyes gleamed

The hopes of a new family, on her wedding day

Hopes that died when those eyes closed

A little girl had once hugged that teddy

And lullabies from her rosy lips that sung

The song of love for her imaginary friend

Love that died when those eyes closed

A young boy had played with that ball

For Sixes and Fours on the Mumbai lanes

Posters of cricketers plastered in moss ridden walls

Little joys that died when those eyes closed The bus ticket from Andheri to Juhu

Had seen a busy office goer’s breast pocket

who dreamed of his own house, his own car, a vacation abroad

Dreams that died when those eyes closed

These inanimate lifeless objects

Were once someone’s hopes or another one’s dreams

But now they lie in a blue plastic bag

In the morgue of a hospital - Amlan