ELUSIVE

The disheveled youth with matted coils
Dirty stubbles, stinking clothes and a hunched spine
Wants freedom from the needle and its prick
The convoluted imageries of concocted euphoria

The girl with the crimson pout, rich-kohled dreams
Loud garb, decadent glamour and deadened expressions
Wants freedom from the nocturnal ritual of
Permitted plunder of an irreproachable mind

The woman “all tattered and torn” decked up
With the blemishes of a tainted vow long forgotten
Wants freedom from the drunken assaults on the
Nascent dream nestling in her womb in fetal innocence

The mother with the wrinkled brows, crinkled saree, lost
Vigour, fading charm, musters the shards of courage forlorn
Wants freedom from the tight rope act, the Draconian
Dilemmas of family, foe, friends and future of a 9 to 5 job

The father with the harrowed smile, the stooped shoulders
The receding hair line has recently given angina a good fight
Wants freedom from this brewing fear of a skipped beat,
A missed chance of dragging breath just a wee bit long

The children with sagging forms, sometimes with a twisted arm
Saddled with the burden of tomes and at times a begging bowl
Wants freedom from this quest unbound of illusive ranks
And non-bailed imprisonment by the parasites of poverty

The stone-faced man fondling a barrel against his chest
Stares hard at the enemy post with unblinking gaze
Wants freedom from this bloody battle of mine and thine
Years he has postponed a vacation to his home town

The stranger with the haunted look caught in the rut of
Prefixed deadlines, the celeb tagged the “handsome hunk”
Blessed with the boon of ceaseless adulation infantile
The country with its sustained growth and territories
Ravaged by sanguine oath, all want freedom
From their vicious in-fights, all are irresistibly
Resigned to the closets of their preordained existence