Adil

He hovers over Cuffe Parade

from the eighteenth-floor balcony:

guardian, priest, and friend.

His visitors are outsiders.

His tiny wife’s a ‘foreigner’.

Once in three years I ring his bell.

When he opens the door, I lose myself

in the Sudhir Patwardhan painting.

He asks politely if I want the fan

and goes off to make Nescafé.

The ceiling is crumbling;

the floor’s covered in newspapers.

What could be higher than here?

Is it any wonder when the sky falls down?

We’re so far away I hear little

of the city in which I was a child.

On calm days, I see him glance

at the balcony with empathy

for sparrows that recur.

I feel a part of him

—as, in his kurta, he returns

to ask me questions—is aware

of their itinerary, and of the poems

flying in from different neighbourhoods:

they are his real guests.

Occasionally, he’ll lower his mug

and sniff the air—I’ve never seen him smoke—

and furrow his eyebrows and smile:

‘I think the city is burning.’