Market

Hustle, bustle, sweat, shouts and screams
some try to entice, some plead
some pissed with what you quote
unending deliberations, persuasions, accusations
that create the hum of market
Where the meats of the goats and fish were sold
and the stealing cows chased
only after they have changed the day’s fate of few traders
where the aatana* did matter
as the child could have got a palice-cream**
for the lady some jasmines to creep into her snake like plait
to fill the gentleman’s lungs with a puff of contentment
The hum of the market
with which everyone had an affair
some daily, some weekly and some occasionally
often pleasant, even at times you cursed some cheater
or the blazing sun and the onion flakes that
made your nose run
away from the market only to return
love hate relationships continued
The market had a place for everyone
the sheep, cows, dogs, sellers, buyers, beggars, cheaters
you could smell it, see it, feel it and be part of it
even if you liked it or not
Those few saved rupees had magical happiness
and Marx was there to give solace from the market
it was a closed space open for all
That market has metamorphosised
with all the financial steroids
The hum of the market
replaced by the ticking beeps in a quiet room
akin to the ICU, clean, serene and constantly monitored
metamorphosis split the market wide and open
open market beeping 24/7
it has changed to an open space
only you need to enter it
You market going fool
when will you master entering open markets
Need of bearing the hustle, bustle and somebody’s sweat has gone
as no more you go to the market but
can enter it from the serenity
of the air conditioned room and
a broadband with a thin wire
Don’t you dare tell you have grown so prosperously thin
that you can’t enter the market
Atleast ‘U’LIP and SIP the market
or bid from your bedroom
Relationship and affair-less market
where you chase dreams and not cows
no cheaters to curse only your dreams
everything, everyone is part of it
opened markets, open for all
you don’t smell, see, feel the onion
yet it makes you cry
water has become a commodity
and the commodity an imaginary
Imaginary profits, symbolic losses
Imagination is the market
A neo-modern painting
avoids perspective, meaning and allows entry and imagination
Dirty, smelling flesh and blood market
has metamorphosised into the market
ubiquitous yet invisible and imaginary
vastly open but prejudicially narrow
and liberally hegemonical
just like God, whether you believe or not
The market where even Marx sells

T. Vishnu Vardhan

*fifty paise
**milk-ice-cream