Mini Dubai

My town nicknamed, ‘Mini Dubai’, burgeoned and branched on the bank of Kanoli canal like a tamarind seed. Now the silvered canal sprawls on its death bed. Busy pedestrians walk down an ancient bridge built by the British. As the traffic light has lost its eye balls, a potbellied policeman dances and controls. Jalopies groan, and modern cars whiz. A long whistle: an ambulance with the wounded and a van with the wedding party halt side by side as the southern and northern hemispheres of emotions meet at a single point. Nostalgic smell of the canal sops in the sizzling tang from a cafeteria. The splurging women whirl in the hurry wind among the concrete buildings seething under the tanning rays. The stink of sweat and the aroma of the Arabian perfumes choke the air in shops, where, sometimes, the chicanery peeks through the glassed. The applications drafted in blood and salt scurry to the offices nearby – only to get the obsequies in the waste baskets. The sots creep like snakes in the yard of Snadra Bar. A crow sits on an electric post and watches all beneath with a smile of wisdom