Mumbai, I Bequeath My Death

I bequeath my death to Mumbai, its many streets, its many lanes
And a sun that never rose on that day
There were no shadows from Bollywood hoardings
Neither from the ghettos of Kurla and Worli
Nor from the mortal divide of a stranger innocence

I bequeath my death to the beggar who died outside the Leopold Café
They shot him and his past; his coins fell from his present
They shot my past too at the narrow street next to it
Where I had once kissed a girl in a fevered evening
And dared again in a night of untoward violence

I bequeath my death to the fireflies at Queens Necklace
That never arrived that day
And to the single Kalashnikov bullet
That stared shamelessly at me
From a footprint in the dark

I bequeath my death to many a death
Many a hurt
And the sky that bled
In a single shroud, a single season,
A single word

I bequeath my death to Mumbai poets
Kaifi Aazmi, Arun Kolatkar and many others
And those who died in their end thoughts
They died again and again
With me on that day