Charminar in the Rain

Rain on the four minarets,
and the bangle-sellers of Laad Bazaar
pull plastic over the glass
like mothers pulling a sheet
over children who refuse to sleep.

Four hundred years
of standing at the centre of everything,
and still the old stone flinches
a little, I swear, at the first drops —
pigeons crowding the ledges,
the walls darkening from honey to tea.

Around it, nothing stops.
Nothing ever stops. Rickshaws, a funeral,
a man with a goat on his scooter,
a bride’s car with its jasmine wilting,
all of it pouring past
the four great arches at once.

I wait under the awning of an attar shop
and the rain smells, briefly, of rose and sandalwood,
as if the city
had put on its best perfume
to go out in weather like this.

Built, they say, to end a plague.
I believe it.
Look how it stands in the downpour,
holding nothing back,
asking nothing,
letting the whole sick, singing,
overcrowded city
pass through its heart
and come out the other side
washed.