Our blind nightwatchman
rises from a postprandial nap
at midnight
and starts on his rounds
through familiar lanes and alleyways
with their familiar smells
and resident pack of loud-
mouthed strays,
strikes the familiar lamp-posts
with his old cane staff
and lets out the familiar
reassuring cry…
Not that thieves and burglars
are kept entirely at bay,
but the incidence of their success
is the same,
roughly,
as the national average.
And though strangers
hearing of him
burst out laughing,
we’d prefer him
to anything else,
even Blackwater, Inc.
We wouldn’t be able to sleep at all
if we didn’t hear his outlandish
drawled
barely intelligible
demotic English cry –
‘Olleej Oil! Olleej oil!...’
All is well! All is well! –
in this poor neighbourhood
where everyone speaks
demotic Bengali.
