Grey bridge, Blue waters

 

I look outside the moving bus

As always – the second window seat from the last

A bridge of steel floats above

Just as days from a distant past

 

The harbour waters shimmer in blue

A luxury cruise has moored nearby

This is but a different world

Until, I look above and give a sigh

 

The girders grey warp in time

To a different bridge on a river wide

Below - dirty city, with waters grey

But a home beckons, with maternal pride

 

Where everyday, I’d cross the bridge

On Ganges in but Hooghly’s guise

Two bustling worlds on swelling banks

Sleepless, sunset or sunrise

 

A flower market here, a station there,

As cranky ferries snake around

Where grey waters merge with greyer skies

The world bursts forth with a zillion sound

 

The offices remind of days from the Raj

Esplanade’s there, not faraway

Strand road’s memory chokes with fumes

The city of Joy had so much to say

 

Only that, we never stayed

Long enough to hear her tales,

We swapped her skies of melancholy

For bluer skies and brighter sails

 

 Despite the zest, the stories here

Seem emptier still, and silent more

We hum with the mirth, but deep inside

We know it’s not the same’s before

 

But once in a while, a page opens up

With a familiar dog-ear on the top,

A bridge of steel, wizened grey –

The wheels of time all come to a stop…

 

12^th December’23

 

Inspired by my bus-trips on the  Harbour bridge, whose grey steel girders – shimmering over the harbour waters - remind me of the Howrah Bridge on the Hooghly river, that I had to cross daily to reach my university.