The City of Contradictions

Going through old things I'd written, getting ready for a visit to Kolkata, I found this forgotten scrap:

The City of Contradictions
The girl walks on her knees.
Her feet end at the ankles:
she was caught in a contradiction.
People live inside the window
which is inches from your window.
From the corner of your eye
a wedding band
  marching
    away
      from
         you
The rickshaw-puller clangs his
dull bell, waiting to drag you
to the innermost chamber.
Jasmine at the burning ghat.
Friend, whose ashes are these? 

Instagram

Some instagram photos, taken in the last couple of months:

frangipani

 a water lorry's hubcap

 the door of a small, portable shrine

 a rice flour kolam pattern

 dinner at On the Rocks

 the swimming pool at Radisson Temple Bay

wild mushrooms grow among tree roots after the rain