Dinu

Dinu

A rustic charm in his words
and a mark of his dialect
in the Hinglish he speaks
is the trademark of Dinu.
One can easily make out
from a distance that
Dinu is sermonizing.

He gave a damn to
what others would think
of the way he dressed up,
kept his hair and stubble,
his own fashion statement.

Uneasy, coy, out of place,
he wouldn't look into eyes.
Humble - even when unrequired,
hesitant in everything,
forget it with girls, even
with boys he won't break ice.

My first encounter with him
was our first outing in the group.
How can I forget his scared look
at the escalators
to the top floor of this mall?
Reluctantly, he had entered
the multiplex for the first time.

But lo! Times have changed.
A year... and he is a movie freak.
He reads reviews,
makes his own views,
every weekend, he would call,
"Bro! 5 pm at the PVR mall?"

He now stops at the lower floor,
knows brands and wears them too.
He is getting an accent
and a new attitude.
A new hairdo, every now and then,
he takes care of his looks
more than his books.
These things, he now says, do matter.
The fashion statement is changing.

*Hinglish is Hindi+English

Originally published in Spark the Magazine of November 2016