Poem on Siliguri

Siliguri is Changing

The Sunday sun
Steps down slowly
On the limbs of Siliguri

Some of the shops are closed
When I walk
On the sweat drenched streets of Siliguri

Peoples are gossiping in crowd
Smoking biri in a busy cha-dokan
Preparing themselves for a new challenge
Of a new morning

Crows crew on top of a garbage heap
Desperate hawkers, balloon sellers, cloth sellers
All and all shout –
“Lijiye lijiye sasta hai!”
But their lives might be cheaper than their goods

I can touch
The hunger
Almost all over the body
Of this juvenile city

A motorcycle wishes me a methane smile
And shows its hurry by its reckless speed: “Hurry!”
This slogan is dispersed with the smoke of bike
On the sky, quite densely

O old Siliguri
Catchword tagged to you now is-
“Siliguri is Changing”
You are assuming perhaps
A commercial maturity
But as you are growing
Your crisis also grows
Bit by bit!

Of course, you are changing-
-You are inviting communal riots
-You are uprooting tea gardens
To establish big apartments
-You are acquiring lands of farmers

Of course
Siliguri has seen so many new happenings
And has shown so much new difficulties

Do you know my 'changing' Siliguri?
That you live in streets
In the bare streets barely
Where urgent lives leave
The marks of struggles
Their urgent struggles

Some of shops are opened
When I walk
On the question drenched streets of Siliguri
And one question followed me like my shadow
-"Siliguri is changing"
But towards which way?