Between 2011 and 2013, more than 20,500 children were registered as missing from Delhi. The majority is believed to have been trafficked out of the state into domestic work or as sex slaves. Two out of three of these children remain missing within a five-year period.

- a recent RTI reply from the Delhi Police

Enveloped in the afterglow
of lukewarm lemonade, Cheetos,
Hershey’s kisses and congealed grilled cheese,
I lie on a fraying blue blanket
in the shade of a banyan tree. Dappled
sunlight shines through millions of
nature’s pinhole cameras, but fails
to capture my lazy satisfaction
as I bury my head in the crook
of my dozing mother’s neck.

A white peacock emerges
from the undergrowth, pecking for worms.
Its translucent, trailing gossamer sheath
sparkles enticingly, hypnotically.
The temptation to chase it too great,
I leave the blanket’s safety,
pursuing it like a clumsy cat.

I follow it to a tree beside a bench
Where an orange-robed, bird-boned
man perches, garments billowing
in the breeze, face wrinkled
like a bald eagle, hawk eyes
observing me as I stalk the peacock,
crumpled face collapsing
into a smile, innocuous enough.

Until he rises laboriously,
producing a brown glass bottle
and a black rag from the cavernous depths
of his robes, movements suddenly swift,
molting the wrapper of his age.
He thrusts the rag into my face.
I don’t breath- I bite, taste dust
and blood, taste my terror,
and RUN.

Today, twelve years later, as I flip
through sheafs of daily monochrome
monstrosities detailing child molestations,
kidnappings, and rape, I shudder,
wonder about what I’ve avoided.
He might’ve poured boiling oil
into my eyes, extinguishing the light of life,
Condemned me to beg,
Or sell drugs in some cartel,
Or sold me to a brothel,
Turning life into dingy lights
and sweat-stained monsters
clamoring for a piece of my flesh.
He would have turned me into a newspaper
article and a thousand images pinned
to bulletin boards braving indifferent eyes.

That Sunday afternoon, I escaped
the clutches of Charon’s incarnation
who tried to steal the coins of my innocence
to ferry me to the world of no return,
the world of unanswered
calls, and a silence
so deep that silence
                        turns
on its heel
and flees.