Zero - A Poem Exploring a Psycho-Social Dynamic

 A typical (mostly Indian) real estate discussion involving an estimate of prices.

Ever wondered what happens to those 'zeroes' that are often omitted from such discussions on price?

Why do we "not seek what we hide but hide what we want to seek?"

A tendency common,

Two men stand before a board blue,

A display of buildings big,

Bearing promises of plantation-like gardens lush,

Houses with bedrooms four,

And the price?

One speculates, "Easily, a 3."

The other reads, "No, a 4.2!"

"Too high a price, isn't it?"

"Towers high and the prices too."

"Back in the day, prices were down and the world brighter."

"Yes! Oh Lord, a 30, a 50, but 80 not more!"

A woman is seen at quite some distance,

She stealthily tracks the number game

in the guise of the morse.

She walks up to ask,

"I don't quite understand, who ate all the zeroes?"

The men look with smiles amusing,

One says, "My ego gulped the zero!"

The other, "So did my social charisma."

"Wealth hidden is wealth given!"

"Say the magic number at most, leave the zeroes for the boast. 

One always can draw eggs in their heads

to imagine the size of the price prize."

"Humour aside, coming to the point that makes a 4, a 4.2,

Somewhere we're guilty a little

to talk about expenses many,

Maybe a little afraid too

to be perceived a noise-maker,

A trumpet that blows its own glory.

Somewhere we want sophistication too,

Numbers on fingertips

are quick little magic tricks.

But remember,

All a social game

of hide and seek.

But we don't seek

what we hide

but we hide

what we seek.

At least, what we want to seek."

The pursuit of the forbidden fruit

was once punished

in Eden's Garden.

Desire for pleasure

is denied

but never erased.

Why should it?

So, it is buried

in the graves of the mind.

Freud's repression

that finds it way 

through cut-speech,

Abruptly trimmed

into the-air-of-what-we-know-but-must-not-say.

The-air-of-what-we-know-but-must-not-say

is around us.

Much like Jung's Collective Unconscious.

We know

but tug it away under the rug.

We know it's there.

The zeroes haven't taken flight.

They are there

but witheld

by the reigns of society's horse.

Plato's horse.

A game of hide and seek.

Gaurav Chandra Tuli