The taluk office smells of wet ceiling lime and old twine.
A three-rupee revenue stamp peels away like dead skin
from the corner of the land deed my grandfather signed.
The clerk flattens the brittle margins with a carbon-smudged palm;
his thumb is stained purple from the stamp pad since noon.
The carbon sheets on the desk curl up from the damp,
transferring dark, indelible smudges onto his cuffs.
You cannot appeal a boundary line drawn in wet graphite.
You just wait for the ink to run into the fiber of the page.