Steps on the pavement

That evening he walked out of the jail gates...

And it was moments before sunset

As he kept walking

Steps on the pavement

He almost felt it was home

Walking down the path

By now deserted

Steps on the pavement 

Big dark city on a winter night

'Akele Hum Akele Tum' playing through a stranger window

Somehow brought back memories

Of radios and winter nights

Life lay scattered like unplanned lanes leading to various no-wheres 

Fourteen years in prison makes one forget a lot

That chilling murder he could never forget

But they made him work in the 'mess' for fourteen years

Food was the last thing on his mind

By now hunger had become a distant dream 

Steps on the pavement 

She was not at home

The posters was still up on her wall

But there were cobwebs in the balcony

A sleeping neighborhood

At the end you are just alone

Steps on the pavement

A car rushing past

Life disappearing in the rear view mirror

As he kept walking

He almost felt it was home

Claws on the pavement

The feel of dogs behind him

The quietness and silence felt like death

Some of them

Many of them

Remembering the posters was still up on her wall

He kept on walking

But he forgot that there were cobwebs in the balcony

Steps on the pavement

Pretending not to run

The roads parted

Like they did in those filthy school books.

Like it had fourteen years ago

One path seemed lightened

The other was dark

He chose the light this time

Untimely salvation is worse than sin

The road ended under a a dead banyan tree

And an old blind dog

The steps on the pavement stopped

The steely silence of a winter night 

The claws on the pavement had stopped

'Akele Hum Akele Tum' floating from a distant radio

Still as a monk, the blind dog sat

He stood still as his life flashed by

And then that deafening bark from the monk

All the dogs attacked

A silence that only death can carry

Blood on the pavement 

A car rushing past

Life disappearing in the rear view mirror