One of the most beautiful daughters of the maximum city

Weeping, with mobile phone in her right hand 

Sitting on a piece of stone bench 

Familiar at Railway stations

Circular in shape and black in colour

At Matunga Railway Station platform number 3 

Wiping her tears not overflowing but dripping

Her eyes red, her cheeks glowing

With head covered in red scarf

Maybe she was talking to her bosom female friend

Narrating all that her boyfriend did to her

Maybe she got failed as the

Half yearly examination results had just come in

Afraid to go home and face her parents, 

Especially her mother

As daughters are always the apple of their father’s eyes

Maybe she was sitting at the platform passing time

But it was only 12 at the day

How long she will be there, I shuddered

She seems to be just 18, maybe 20, but 

By no means 21. I’ve mastered the 

Art of guessing people’s age

Unaware of the movements of the trains 

Passing by her side every three minutes both ways

To Churchgate and to Virar, and Borivali

The daughter of this sin city

Looked tense but adorable

The charm and the innocence plastered over her face

With the cuteness of a three-year-old baby

Maybe she lost her father a few days back

Or her mother, maybe her younger brother

Maybe her father has just divorced her mother

Maybe her mother left with some other man

Leaving behind a lonely house and dejected father

Maybe she was missing her mother 

To tell her those girly problems

But you don’t miss your mother at railway station

Not even pretend, certainly not in Mumbai

It was possible in Bombay 

When people looked at you if you were in distress

They used to stop by and enquire 

No more, now people have no time

They have enough people 

On Facebook WhatsApp and Instagram 

To interact and worry about

Maybe she was eloping with her boyfriend

Who didn’t turn up

Asking her to wait he switched off his phone

Enough reason these days to worry about

Enough issues to solve or

Maybe I couldn’t see the impotent rage in her eyes.