So

I remember sand. It was all over the car and on my feet and dress. Mommy sitting in the front seat had it all over her saree and my papa had it in his hair which she laughingly dusted off. Bhai had filled his shoes with it to take some home.

It was my first day at school. I was given 6 chocolates. One for every hour till the driver came to pick me up. They had forgotten I don't like chocolate. I gave each one away.

I woke up to smells of toast and egg and coffee and Nivea. Mommy in the kitchen, bustling, humming, cooking. Papa sitting with his newspaper. I went and sat on his lap and read the headlines out loud.

It's the first day of the rest of my life. It hasn't begun well.

They

They weep and laugh at me.

They revel in my downfall.

They need me to live,

these faces of wrath.

I may denounce them whenever...

but they need me..

to love them?

Their satisfactions and desires are moulded

by my discarded bits and ideals.

The masked men of a real life they peep

through

horizontal slits.

They weep and laugh at my losing my mask.

They feel burdened with my loss,

while their sense of bereavement floats

upon

winds of shame.

Masks never did have a soul...

Quietus

In the end it all boiled down to nothing.

As he lay dead they laughed.

Not at him, not at death but at each other.

At something that someone said.

The quiet that followed was a guilty hush.

Definitely not out of respect. 

"Do you think?..." someone said and petered off.

That is when I think his soul had had enough.