In response to
Birds of New York by Francisco X. Alarcón
dear Birds of New Delhi,
look how I began with a small letter
no, capital worries! Just capital jokes from the colony.
this is about ants of New Delhi living a bit below
in elbow of a house, channel of a tv,
just casually ducking a common career.
can
you see them?
they are too many. too many.
divided by labour, united by communication.
they are whisperers alongside cabinet
filling up voids of city even on top of India Gate.
every morning these ants find a fallen tree in New Delhi
pierce mandibles through a busy mango and its bee.
they miss the fallen barks of Madhav Rao Scindia Marg
the ants of New Delhi drop from Mulberry leaves in March
and show up in the middle of my homework. They show up
during winters, while writing ‘Trees’. They keep
sitting inside the ‘e’ of the exams. They disappear
when you hold out fork for eating apple
the ants waltz around the hole of ‘e’ and glide
across ‘i’ of Fiucs Religiosa when taking car out from
garage.
they look like road on a deserted road
they look like words in a book
they look like a city from an airplane
when they want to go places
even they reach railway stations
there’s not much space reserved for them in air
but they hitchhike on metros bombarding disgruntled
officers
yesterday they were on news
for protecting jalebi from being wasted
they live in libraries, watching for words
that might fall out while shifting
they carry invisibilities in multitudes
the ants of New Delhi may not seem vulnerable in front of
chocolate city lights on lanes of New Delhi
in front of bearded sensibilities
that clears projects in Andamans
and edits CV of Delhi
the ants of new delhi take turns to survive
without water in May
with water in August
parallelly guided by cranes and uprooted trees
for building a building that will never be fully
understood
and will be built again, they celebrate a city already in
their abdomen
they know waste of new delhi by its chemical name
the ants of new delhi don’t even see humans fully
just parts of us. these small ants see objects
only when they are closer to it
they see different things together & become artists
there’s no place on earth where they haven’t been
trapped in lines of chalk they die fast
they’ve never known chaos or the universe
but they have chased dinosaurs and kites
the ants of New Delhi
drop hints in full sight
bumping they lead each other
around the tips from A to B
waving their antennae, they crumble
all the flights above
the ants of New Delhi
dream of being poets of the earth
they love a queue but no line breaks
they breathe through their whole body
they live inside the CV of capital letters
they can neither see nor will
hold a victory march for
all the homes going away
that will be coming to
the ants of New Delhi
