Two little travel ditties

I cannot call them poems, though poems they are. I penned them down in a train, about seven or eight years ago, as I traveled through little humdrum villages in Kerala to attend a function. Life itself had seemed like an R.K.Narayan novel at that time, thoughts piling on thoughts, experiences on experiences, and not the space of a single breath to sort out my mind.

Yet I wrote what came to me all of a sudden. Like a little thunderstorm in the middle of summer. And after several years, I came by these lines where they lay, in a nondescript notepad consigned to be 'waste paper.' And hereby, I restore them to their rightful place...


I. In a Moving Train

Little grilled windows
through which light shines
and casts shadows
of ogres and giants
that sit inside
eating their curds and whey
and packaged food and overripe fruits
While noisy children play
and run and push and catch and shove
and squeal and spit and scratch and sigh
Little ogrelings, they.

What, to them, is an open pen?
But a sharp thing to jab
into his hand or her thigh
They, who do not buy
The chips and the chocolate and the cake
In a moving train they
and theirs now do sleep, while I wake...


(unedited)

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II. Nemmara

I visit Nemmara in my dreams
A sleeping house in a shady lane
A swept-out yard where chickens run
And twenty acres of cane.

I open its door one early morn
As the cock crows at the breaking dawn
I wash the porch and wash the steps
And kolams make of powdered rice
The dark floors to adorn.

And the cattle goes to earn its bread
And the lads run from school
While scented girls do gently tread
Beside the temple pool.


(unedited)

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