Dilli Pulis: Two movements (December 21, 2019)

At Mandir Marg police station, I saw,
as I stepped off a private bus
spilling with young anti-CAA protestors,
the oiled moustache of a havaldar
waiting for the student
whose tremulous gait cradles his fear.
His eyes gleam with the flower of defiance,
his lips atremble with hope, and impertinence.
A smile quietly makes its home in his eyes,
as he turns to me-
“It’s my first time”

—A few kilometres away
in another cage,
Outside Daryaganj police station,
on the darkest night of this winter yet,
an orange nucleus of fire,
a piece broken from the sickled moon,
began to smart, and sputter,
now red, carved into the palm of a tailor.
The night lay writhing, ablaze in his eyes
as he stepped out of the police station
after a 7 hour rendezvous with pain –
“It’s my first time”