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Visual Silence


A transient visitor into her sensorial world,

“Now walk,” she said.
My legs played possum to her vocal stimuli:
spoilt for visual signals, spatial comfort.
“Walk, trust me!” she said again.
The eyeballs held captive
 by my sweaty palms,
now choked in want of feeble light.
I couldn’t give up, not so soon.
“Now come on, di!” she said
and held me tight.
And then I felt.
The stagnant wind in the service lane,
vehicular breeze from the corner street.
The gravel, baked foliage
crackled, crushed under my feet.
There was poetry in madness.
I listened for traffic, vehicles, people,
almost every tiny sound that was audible.
My stoked skin-hair soaked vibrations,
My smoked eyes inhaled the tyre fumes .
I froze. I felt the missing arm. 
Where was I? Where was Jasmine?
At the crossing?
I heard the storming of horns, 
the screech of brakes.
I stood in their way!
Guessing, decoding
listening, feeling, all-in-one,
I dropped my hands in panic.
And ran to safety.
Light flooded my painful eyes,
in an explosion of colours,
 watching a blurry little Jasmine
scuttling with her stick across the pedestrian.
“No! Don’t, there’s a road!” I screamed.
Unfeeling of the withheld rebukes,
Unseeing of their nasty stares,
She crossed the road with ease.
“Didi, where did you go?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t see!” I said
and hugged my symbiotic sister.
She congratulated,
I sighed in relief,
as we trudged our long way home.


RAJASHREE ANAND