Teesta’s greens

There’s kindness in the gully’s greens

Fed by summer’s rains,

As the time-stilled photos make me look

Beyond the shutter’s lens

Images float from the Himalayan hills,

As Teesta flows in green,

And albums old all come to mind

From long ago, unseen

Marmoreal rocks, shingled sands,

As slopes of jade remind,

That for all those pilgrims brave to come, 

The hills are always kind

The hamlets pass, the Buddha beams,

The Coronation shines in pink,

While all along, the river gleams 

As verdant as you think

Prayers fly in fluttering flags,

Adventure in a lemon raft,

And Teesta weaves without a word, 

Dreams for a future draft

Which is s’posed to blow in a lacking land

That gets deluged one day,

For all the rains to splash the tales

Of a river from faraway

LIke olden love then, you find her face

In every drop of green,

But Teesta smiles, she doesn’t ask

Where all these years you been?

I feel jealous of the drizzle drops

Unlike them, I don’t know where to flow,

But I know I’ll hear that warbling voice

Whichever way I go

Empty sands or glacier white

Will throb an empty heart,

Whatever chapters lay ahead, 

At least, Teesta knew her part…

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I walked along a gully today, filled up with the summer rains - beneath a set of rapids, a green bejewelled pool invigorated further the rain-washed freshness, almost making me happy and pensive immediately - for the soft pastel green colours reminded me of one river from the Himalaya whose colour will remain unforgettable - Teesta. How many times have I not gone past her cliffside mountainous roads travelling to Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Phuentsholing and onwards. And how many times have I not been bedazzled by those jade-green calm peaceful waters lapping golden rivages, white blinding rocks and endless hamlets of simplicity. That colour, just like that river cannot be displaced from memory and every time you see some palette in some part of the world bearing that colour in a water-flow, the mind gets agitated, and excited, as if it is the past coming back all over again. And yet, sometimes you can only despair with Saudade, at others you can reassure again that the journey still awaits to be made, all over again - the green waters of the Teesta still waiting, in ephemeral dreams, just as in eternal memories…

27th November'2021

Images: Author's archives