Winter's song

These shivering, chilly, hillside nights

That mist in winter cold,

Often take me back in time,

To Lucknow’s days of old

The early classes meant the warmth

Of the blankets had to wait,

The day would pass in page after page

The dusk would come by late

The nights ran long, with endless reads,

So cold the books would mourn

With a broken heater in a hostel room

Fighting winter lone

But the days would turn to weeks and months

Time left quickly as it came,

When life offers a track to run

Who seldom stops to blame?

Where came the warmth, I wonder now

Was it just the speed of life?

Or was there more, beyond the seen

In the winters’ edge of knife

Was it the warmth of elaichi tea?

The salami sandwich strong?

That the mess offered till 2 of night

(Which even today I long)

Or was it in the halogen lamps

That fought with a retro light?

Or the retired army men all strewn,

Awake in every night?

Perhaps more than all, it was the strength

Of the friends there by your side

Each soul in every cell awake

All eyes awakened wide

The songs of drunken revelry

Would waft from a nearby room

Some singing late, some solving sums

Who cared for winter gloom?

Egalite - all souls together

Aboard a ship on sail

Finance , Films – that mattered not,

Together, none could fail

 

Night-outs, reports and countless tests

Call of Duty for some,

Beyond the words that seasons penned

The campus had a song to hum

That song had kept us all awake

The rest was all noise white

Beyond the fog and December mist

A guiding unseen light

It’s 2 at night now, shivering cold

Tonight there’s no more tea,

But I smile – someone faraway fills his cup

While I sip again a memory…

20th May, 2022, 2:11 am