you didn’t know did you
that snighdhata, soft warm comfort
was a certain monsoon?
no one told you?
such a monsoon who by its free will
can wander all year long,
wanders,
in the sky:
a burst of rain today,
tomorrow, stormy cloud.
thence, from time to time there come instances of rainy breeze, cyclone.
whenever I close my eyes I can see
as soon as it rains the kids
dropping what they have run away to the fields and rivers;
and standing beside mud walls and tubewells village wives
call home their ducks from canals and ponds:
choi-choi, choi-choi, choi-choi.
About a hundred years back
A childhood friend teased you, calling you choi-choi,
do you remember?
today, in this life you are a swan of winter’s country
swimming from lake to lake
crossing oceans you wander to unknown distant lands.
but in this life too, someone
calls you by your pet-name from a hundred years –
calls you soundlessly, choi-choi, choi-choi.
and you, perhaps, hear nothing
isn’t it?
