Mumbai

Gold cherry

By Ed Crane

Fri, 18 Oct 2013
  • 7967 reads
23 comments
 

Two in the morning, riding a hornet

liveried taxi on Tarmac resting from

the burden it carries from sunrise

to sunset. The windows are open.

Lounging on the backseat, like a

renegade mogul, I breath post monsoon

atmosphere laden with indigenous spice.

A human Tick, sucking on the nipple

of India’s economic miracle. Strictly

for the benefit of a far away entrepreneur.

 

A red light ahead, the driver stops

and waits for green in the sleeping city.

Who knows what lies in the shadows

beneath the walls? . . .  I find out.

One merges into a stick insect

dressed in rags: a digit-less body

supported on a Mango branch.

The economic miracle

has passed him by. Yet, he is

a miracle, standing at the car window

requesting help in the language of

beggars. Outstretched arms ending

in fingerless stumps.

 

I wonder how he’s going to hold

the coins while I fish in my pockets.

Green light fills the cab and the driver

obeys the rules, leaving me sitting

in comfort with a handful of unclaimed

Rupees. I look back at the miracle of survival

in the middle of the boulevard and I’m gifted

with an impression that will stay in my minds-eye

all my days. He’s been there for a hundred

years and will be there a hundred more.

 

Certificate 15
Poem
Journal

Comments

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Very moving, and told in a simple, clear way.
Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Thanks Rhiannon. I'm pleased you read it.

 

Submitted by Bee on

I agree with Rhiannon - this is so moving. I don't want to say any more because the poem is so well written it says it all - especially at the end.

Bee

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Thank you very much for your kind comments Bee and thanks for reading it.

 

Submitted by catherine poarch on

I didn't expect the ending. I didn't expect the beginning either. What I'm trying to say is, expecting one kind of poem about India, I found a much sharper one. I think it is really well-written and I hope it gets cherry-picked.

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Thank you very much for your very kind words. Certainly India is a place of extremes.

 

Submitted by scratch on

That's a beauty Ed.  Especially so from "I find out." In the second stanza.  

Before that point I'm not sure that you've given it as much of your special lustre.  Perhaps consider the first section?  Is "indigenous" superfluous? The tic (tick) image is not sitting straight with me - but I have a small brain - ticks are blood suckers but you aligned it with the image of the milk providing nipple (I accept that it may have been intentional) and it seemed a little disparate.  

Having said that it still is a cracking poem and one that I'm glad you posted because it made me think.  The message is one that I wistfully consider also.  

Please remember that my opinion is, like everyone else's, totaly subjective.  I think this is a very good poem.  Well done.

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Thanks, Scratch for reading and commenting. I know what you mean about the tick and nipple, but I was never comfortable going to India for my boss. I always felt I was taking advantage (on behalf of the 'company') when I saw how most people lived and knowing that very few of them benefit.

Might have been me, but from the moment the plane landed I could always smell spices. India has a lot of smells, mostly good ones.

I was a fascinating time in a fascinating place, but I'm retired now and will most likely never go again.

Thanks for the cherries.

 

Submitted by scratch on

It's a good poem Ed and opinions are inevitably subjective anyway.  I thought this was a cracker as obviously someone else did for it was them who cherry picked it not me.  I couldn't pick a winner in a one horse race!

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

OK Scratch, thanks for pointing that out, so:

Thanks Eds for the cherries!

I am trying to think up an alternative to 'tick feeding off the nipple,' but for the moment I can't think of one. I suppose feeding on the 'blood' of the economic miracle could be OK, but I'm not sure about that analogy yet.

 

Submitted by scratch on

Don't stress Ed, it's still good as it is!

 

Submitted by catherine poarch on

Well, I've got sucked into the tick debate! I did notice the word tick when I first read it, because I was born in Seychelles and I remember the ticks/tics sucking on our dog's skin all the time. They just had a free ride and a free meal all the time. It seemed very apt. Maybe it's the word nipple, although I see what you were doing. Maybe you need to keep to what ticks do, sucking on blood, skin, flesh, as that's a good, leech-like image in itself? But I also think that if you want to change it and you don't have to, that you need another two syllable word? What a great poem though. Don't change it unless you're sure.

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Thank you very much Scratch and Catherine. Good advice. For the moment I think I'll let it rest as it is.

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Nice one, Ed.  Particularly evocative for me as my late daughter visited Mumbai not long before she passed away, as one of her stopovers on a  'trip of a lifetime'.  Metaphorically speaking, she left her heart there, bless her.

Thanks for posting this, and many congrats on the cherries.

Tina

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Thanks Tina,

It's a been a while since I visite and worked in India. My base was in Mumbai, but I was fortunate to see a lot more of the country, mostly off the tourist track, doubly interesting.

I am so sorry for the loss of your daughter, I do hope this poem roused pleasant memories for you, despite its theme.

I have actually written very little about the things I saw there, I am beginning to think I should write more even if it's if only to my own memories of this incedible land.

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Yes, they were pleasant memories, Ed.  She passed away six years ago and the time she spent in India were some of the happiest days of her all too short life.  She took many photographs, so in a way, I was there with her.

Tina

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Bloody Hell, golden cherries! Many thanks ABC.

 

Submitted by catherine poarch on

No need to reply - but so glad you got not just cherries but golden ones! Well deserved.

 

Submitted by scratch on

yesWhoa! Golden ones Ed, good on you mate.  Thoroughly deserved, I feel like the nipple now. Lol

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Thanks Scratch

 

Submitted by Linda Wigzell Cress on

This touched me greatly; my Dad was in India during the war and the beggars with many deformities  touched him greatly, he never forgot them and was even then greatly touched and distressed by the chasm between rich and poor.  Well deserved golden cherries Ed.

Linda

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Thank you  Linda.

My dad was in South Africa training soldiers in WW2 and he often talked about the way the blacks were so badly treated. At least that's over now ... mostly.

 

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Yes they are called Hindustan Ambassadors. Based on a 58 Morris Oxford. They are great, I liked being driven around in them. They are slightly (I mean slightly) updated from the original and I don'r know what engine they have now.  They also make 55 Fiat 1100's for taxis and they were the cheapest car in India to buy £2000 I think. Not sure if they make them now.

Someone still makes Royal Enfield bike they export a lot of them.

I certainly agree with your naive view of the human race ..... trouble is, it's too easy.