Harami

I drive a Honda City now.
They all look in awe- they say
"Ramu has become a millionaire"
I laugh it away- Sahib is nice
He sometimes lets me drive it
To the end of the city, and back.
I feel happy- they say you're happiest
When you are a child. I spent mine
Running around on the streets-
Caked in dust and snot, they called me Harami,
Until the day I knew- and I changed it to Ramu.

And little by little, I get to know
More things about me everyday.
When at weddings, all the drivers
Get together to smoke chillum-
And look at magazines baring women's breasts
I dream of open fields- of swaying paddy.
And I see myself naked.
With a man's shadow atop me.

I know better than to tell them
That at the municipal tap- I wake up
In the morning only to see all of them
Get bare chested and bathe, to make out
The shape of their contours and bulges
Through their wet clothes- and I sometimes
Purposely ask Shome to spend nights in my house
To take in his divine smell as he silently dreams.

Sahib asks why I don't marry- and I tell him
No girl marries bastard drivers.
He clicks his tongue.
I smile. I have seen him undress, once.
I did not like him.

And amidst all of this, sometimes,
I stand naked, and look down-
For the hint of a breast or a vagina.
My penis stares at me in the darkness.
So do my dreams. A man's shadow.
And while inside me, as I writhe in blissful pain
He calls me "Harami".