I saw a short video on my phone.
smoke rising near Lal Qila,
people running, some shouting things I couldn’t hear.
At the tea stall, one man said, "Gas leak."
Another thought, maybe leftover crackers from Diwali.
Nobody really knew; everyone kept guessing.
The sky stayed a dull grey.
same as most winter evenings in Delhi.
The peanut seller didn’t stop;
he kept calling, louder than usual.
Down near Chandni Chowk,
rickshaws crawled through the lane,
horns clashing with the sound of sirens.
I remembered the guard at the gate—
the one who waves people in each morning.
I wondered if he was still on duty,
if he’d made it back home.
When night came,
the dust hadn’t settled.
People stood around with their phones.
faces lit by the screens,
not saying much.
A voice on the radio said the city was calm again.
No one moved;
they just looked toward the fort.
waiting, maybe, for another sound.
Rajat Chandra Sarmah is a writer and poet from India whose work has appeared in The New Verse News and other national and international journals. A Fellow of LEAD India and the Institution of Engineers (India), he writes about everyday life, memory, and the quiet shifts within public events.
