Kanoli Kaaka

He rolls up and down on life’s surface as a droplet on the *colocasia leaf. He never walks with his life hand in hand. While heaping up yellow metal and rupee on the side-walk, green life gets wasted in his mind’s nook. Time passes with pastimes, but he doesn’t see. Now his body and arm-chair are antique alike. He stays afloat like a banana stem. He chews bits of areca-nut wrapped in betel, smeared with a nip of lime. He spits red shapeless fury into a brass spittoon. His lazy children grow up on the mount of money. Often Kaaka smokes a beedi. Curls of futility rise up. *Colocasia is a tropical plant with its leaves having a natural ultrahydrophobic surface. First appeared in The Literary Hatchet.