Title: Hoshang Merchant, poet
1Hoshang Merchant, poet
Life is Lonely in Bombay City, 1960In Bombay
they sit at Irani restaurantsWith names like
Leopalds or even Edward VIIIThe commoners
fascination with kingsWhile surviving on
card-sharpers and cabbage.It is not lonely in
thereMirrors keep one companyAnd the sound of
the Churchgate Fast hurtling byRattling teacups
and the hands of scribes or murderIIIf
someone is naïveenough to walk into your one
room lodgingYou could serve him moon cookies,
with teaOr go off to his bed for company
One of the founders of Gay Liberation at Purdue
University