and with a wry shrug of our shoulders
we let the numinous structures
of individual past dissolve
in the whirling smoke
of filtered cigarettes, sitting
on the rocks of Marine Drive,
littered with several old sins,
buried, now proudly rediscovered -
whose fate, ill-fated to have survived
invective reproach of rumour mills.

“man, those were the days”,
classic clichéd terms we used
and within few minutes, antedate
future artificial scenes
that danced the skank
to the reggae of Arabian Sea; and
admiration for time’s ironical gallows
grew with each passing smoke;
life that returned after a long silent void
on way back home: a long evening on road.