Rains in the Ghats

 

The howling winds ring still in the ear

After long the hills have dried away,

In a restless mind, the earth is calm

Yet the monsoon clouds billow in grey

 

The rains in the ghats are emerald green

The moistened memories deep within,

Melancholy seeps from the broken walls

Where once the forts would the Deccan reign

 

And the youthful streams have scoured a path

Not just in vales and ridges old,

The water runs deep in submerged minds,

And in dreams that float on, yet untold

 

The cascades plunge through the folds of time,

Some rise even with the banshee breeze,

The seasons stop, the cycle breaks

Yet the mizzling memories never cease

 

What did I lose in those igneous traps?

Why pensive runs each cloudy day?

One drop of rain sets forth a sea,

And drenched are my deserts of far away

 

A whisper floats from the western ghats, -

It’s not what we lose in the rains that flood

Rather what we find when the earth turns soft,

As new roots grow in mist and mud…

 

Deccan. Sahyadri. The Western Ghats strewn around Tamhini, Malshej and many more stepped hills steeped in primordial antiquity, these are what monsoon memories are made of. All coloured in deepest shades of green as the muddy earth bursts forth in a cornucopia of freshness. Waterfalls streak through these hills like countless streams of teary paroxysms as the earth cries, but in reality laughs in yet another reincarnation of monsoon aliveness. In this chaos, it is natural for mortal souls to get inebriated in the showers of psychedelia, so much so that even if a relentless drought desiccates the mind for years, it takes one memory to dislodge fonts of monsoonal showers to drench out all other emotions. A red desert turns into a green plateau in no time, the melancholic steely grey clouds float all over again in unceasing rains in the ghats. Even if there are no more rains, even if there are no more ghats…

 

06^th August, 2022