The Day After

The day after Diwali I sat under a tree like the Buddha of yore ruminating. The boom and glory of the day before had vanished. There were only desultory cracks here and there and the odour of cracker fumes. The earth lay dampened, mercy of an unsolicited thunder cloud, smelling like a woman in heat. And I, an incapable man in his seventies, sat there, looking ahead at the abyss that lay before, gray without the footsteps of events. They call it by names, death someone said, I don't care, my days of Diwali booms are over, also the middle age of diabetic exultation, of torpid stupor post-indulgence. Am looking at the void called the day after To embrace, drown in it to rejuvenate and return to celebrate my Diwalis again. Keep the crackers ready and my luscious mates too, life is unceasing ecstasy: my unending body in whatever form it is recreated through my eternal sojourn wreaks of Diwali fumes! Life is Diwali, don't worry, there is no day after or before, there is only the now, glorious, revealing all the time, I have no choice and so I am!