Clouds in the valley...

  Toc-a-toc Toc-a-toc Toc-a-toc Mid-day’s heat: Somewhere, In the midst Of the city’s din If you pay attention You can hear Above the hawker’s cries Beyond the truant kids A coppersmith at work   Not bidriware But the barbet Tinkers an old dream Reminding faintly Beneath this veneer There is another city Of Mango trees A kingfisher in the shadows And Chatim’s delight, The sepia city seems to stare From an old photo left behind In a musty book from yesterday   But all of this Clouded by the gasoline Of tomorrow’s Kolkata Still shouting: Cholche na Cholbe na Receding softly If you sit up and listen To the coppersmith’s world, Awakening us anew Toc-a-toc Toc-a-toc Toc-a-toc… 12th March, 2026

  Cloudy days - How long will they keep painting my Sky? Time and again, they come Bringing the smell of wet earth From the past, As much as unseen memories From the future   But what if, They are not here to romanticise? Rather to get over with: The red earth saturated so much That the inland seas from yesteryear Arise once more To enrich the land not our own   Let it bleed Let Eromanga rise again Let the fossilized memories Come to life again That we are set free To roam the desert sands Where a new adventure awaits…   8 th March, 2026   The Eromanga Sea was a vast inland sea that existed during the Cretaceous period, covering much of what is now inland Queensland and South Australia. At its height, it stretched hundreds of kilometers, creating a rich marine ecosystem that preserved fossils of marine reptiles, ammonites, and early dinosaurs. Over millions of years, the sea gradually receded, leaving behind...

  Clouds come to the hills Not to the seas, Yet your cloudy eyes appeared On Nagaon’s sands   ‘Who comes to the beach On a rainy day?’ You could have said, But you too were lost   In angry waves, howling winds The foam of lashing seas, Under inky blue skies Bringing waves of rains   Redemption, indeed In that deluge above, In that flood below Nothing for the eyes to hide   And then, you smiled You realised: It was never About the hills or seas One could be either   It is the rains that unite Dissolving all emotions Until it’s just you and me, Left behind on a cloudy day…

Purple lights Of the Howrah Bridge Ferry caught in the rains And we, in our nor’wester That first kiss Without the kiss While dancing in the thunder And hoping the journey never ends   But summer’s storm brings short relief. At the busy Howrah Station I turned back And time split, a part of me still there On the ferry Tasting rains, looking ahead The other me, awaiting clouds Under purple lights that fade away…   4 th March, 2026    

  At Leura, I stare At the Bridal Veil Falls - Summer’s rains Have breathed in fresh life And the valleys echo With the waterfalls roar   Blue clouds billow On the horizon, White smoky breaths Of the green jaded hill arise And the mountains wake To the mizzle of March   The Western Ghats Come back easily. The same colour of the clouds A nor’wester in Calcutta Or the wetness of Shillong What rejuvenated memories   But I stop myself – Isn’t it enough looking back? How long will I pass the present With the eyes of a distant past The memories, though beautiful Become a burden   The waterfalls remind Sometimes it’s good to flow ahead The arrow of time severed, I smile Leura is beautiful, The Blue Mountains are a bounty I wonder what the next village reveals…

  To all my friends who lost themselves – like me - in the Western Ghats   It was in the Ghats That we discovered Eden. If paradise could drizzle Wouldn’t this be it? The sky - with every shade of grey The earth – with every shade of green In between, us colourblind souls Drenching in a spectrum Of waterfalls that bled the hills.   I am removed, but what of you? Do you still seek cascades Every time it rains? Or have you succumbed To the summers of your lives? Was it ‘me’ that dragged you along? Or was it ‘us’, our restlessness Calmed only by the grandeur of the ghats?   Perhaps we have grown old But somewhere I know We are still there, seeking waterfalls, In the rains that never stopped We are still there, climbing wet earth Finding our own footsteps Yet wondering, where have they gone? The dreamy explorers of yesterday’s time...