Hyderabad

From the heights of Charminar
Life seems small and unimportant
Something to do away with.
Pearls scintillate in the streets
Adorning your journey
To the minaric heights.
Countless pigeons flock its windows
Like warring ancestors for control.
They fly off now and then
For prayers in Jama Masjid.

In Salar-Jung's museum
Rebeca, in her delicate folds
Welcomes you to a scattered past
Swords and shields
Nut crackers and ivory cases
Fancy pistols and barreled guns
Sexy goddesses and meditating Buddhas
French furniture and Japanese clocks
Bidri crafts and Chinese jade
Endless things in the galleries galore.

On the banks of Hussain's tank
Are poets of the yore
Stuck with their verse, and
Looking up to a smiling Buddha
Clad in a folded robe
And dressed up for the sermon.
As you traverse along
The necklace adorning the ascetic
There are lovers, lost in each other
Like Quli and Bhagmati.

The Shahi tombs lie abandoned
Lost to time like an ancient love.
Once in a while visitors turn up
like memories of nostalgia.
The dynasty rests in peace
As the sun sets and it loses sight
Of the palace on Golconda.
Pin drop silence around the fort
Except an odd couple dancing
Before a moving camera
Like Shiva and Parvathi
With takes and retakes.

Away from this bustle
In quieter streets
There are unmarked graves
And surviving fort walls
Weeds grow through them
enshrouding their existence.
Stories as children we hear
Of treasures being carted away
Every night to Istanbul and London.

The city sleeps sound
With the undercurrent of love
Of Quli and Bhagmati
Still seen on the bridge
In each others' arms
Listening to the Moosi
As it carries away
The sorrows of the day.