The song of twenty twenty

Two minutes to go before it turns twenty one. 31st December, 2020. 11.58 pm.

I am in the balconey four stories above the street looking down at empty pavements and very little traffic.

There are a few sheepish fireworks but hardly any. Curfew at 11 and hotels and bars closing too has taken care of that. The threat of a new strain of covid and absconding passengers from the UK where it first surfaced, has drained away the hope.

One lone person cheers somewhere and another cheer joins. The promenade used to be packed with thousands of people, now there is no one in sight. No burst of red or gold or blue reflects in the ocean. There is no one to send up firework after firework.

I hear the ships bugles loud and clear. They are carried easily on the city’s silence not competing with crowds and noise for once. Mumbai is a port city so it does not feel like new year without hearing them. Are the ships lit up like Diwali? I can hear them from the ocean on the other side of this finger of land, but cannot see them.

The last bugle fades. One car passes. The street is empty.

So now its twenty twenty one.

Should we be happy?

Will it be better than the last?

The song of 2020

nowhere to go
no one to meet
standing by the window
above the empty street

looking for nobody
waiting for nothing

wondering
how did it ever come to this?