It's 9 in the morning

It's 9 in the morning

On yet another doubtful day

Not even sure

Completely uncertain

But with a subtle belief

That the community siren will blow its top

To tell people that

it's 9 in the morning

As always.

Every day of my life

Well 2 decades back now

I grew up from a boy to a man

Losing my youth on the way

The sleepy and laid-back city

Suddenly waking up to the siren

It was of no emergency

But of 9 in the morning.

With the siren

I would rush to the balcony

From where the slice of the sky was not so bad

My friend's uncle would look up in the sky

As a daily routine

For a plane flying south to Madras

Yes of course he was a travel agent

The doctor would walk out of his house

With the most depressing look ever

To take his car out for work

My search would be for the local community cleaner

For he would get me my Mary Jane

For with the siren blow

I knew its 9 in the morning.

In years that passed by

I would hate if the old man would leave

After the siren would blow

This was the time

When I would rush out to the balcony

With a contraceptive in my pocket

For my newfound girlfriends to come

Usually in a hand-pulled rickshaw

My libido would rush

After a joint in the terrace

For some wild sex

For the siren had blown

And it's 9 in the morning.

I visited the lane after a decade

To find no siren blow

At 9 in the morning

The doctor I heard is dead

And so is the travel agent

And a long time my old man

The community cleaner's son has taken over

The balcony looked lonely

Decadence with time

So much has changed

It's 9 in the morning

Yet no siren

As if it was sucked out of my mother's stomach

The way her gall bladder was taken out

Last week at 9 in the morning