The Blackened Chicken Franky

With tattered pants, he roamed bare-chested,
On a railway station that was a conglomeration of people.
A bottle of shoe polish and a tarnished cloth,
For his burning stomach, the manikin would work without a sabbath.

The days began at an early hour,
Due to the perturbing sounds alongside where he slept-
A railway platform or a footpath.

He had never seen his parents nor had he heard of ‘school’.
The little champ wasn’t aware what’s acting ‘smart’ and what’s playing a fool.
He didn’t know if it’s better to be right or wrong,
Never in his life had he enjoyed; worn fancy clothes or swayed to the nursery rhymes and children songs.

All he knew of, was a feeling that he felt from within,
We, the learned, call it ‘hunger’.
Catching the trains that arrive at Borivali station,
And actualizing a ‘full meal’ was his, impracticable, fascination.

From Borivali to Churchgate; he would travel to and fro,
Two rupees each, was the rate for the shoe polish to flow.
A vast choice of restaurants, he had for a meal;
Dadar for ‘Vada Pav’ and Borivali for ‘Neera’ was his routine food deal.

Aromatic food around, would make the temptation reach its peak;
A ‘Franky’ at Churchgate, in his dreams he would seek.

Once he earned twenty five rupees by sheer serendipity;
Straightaway went to Churchgate, after an unusual morning tea.
Seemingly, coloured with black blood; his hands were, as always, sticky;
Though he had the time of his life, eating that blackened ‘Chicken Franky’.

- Mihir Chitre
mihirmumbaikar@gmail.com