73 IN INDIA Always, in the sun's eye, Here among the beggars, Hawkers, pavement sleepers, Hutment dwellers, slums, Dead souls of men and gods, Burnt-out mothers, frightened Virgins, wasted child And tortured animal, All in noisy silence Suffering the place and time, I ride my elephant of thought, A Cezanne slung around my neck. The Roman Catholic Goan boys The whitewashed Anglo-Indian boys The musclebound Islamic boys Were earnest in their prayers. They copied, bullied, stole in pairs They bragged about their love affairs They carved the tables broke the chairs But never missed their prayers. The Roman Catholic Goan boys Confessed their solitary joys Confessed their games with-heeled toys And hastened to the prayers. The Anglo-Indian gentlemen Drank whisky in some Jewish den With Muslims slowly creeping in Before or after prayers. To celebrate the year's end: men in grey or black, women, bosom semi-bare, twenty-three of us in all, six nations represented. The wives of India sit apart, They do not drink, they do not calk, of course, they do not kiss.