Remembering the monsoons

 

 I look up at the skies at dusk

Not vermillion blush

But grey - it is a pale shade of blue-grey

That is beautiful

For the colours come from

The Western hills

From many years back

 

I sigh -

The times: they were always capricious

But the people - even they have moved on

My friends are just photos in old albums

Others have gone nearer

And I am now floating alone

Like a cloud atop a faraway hill

That always seems beyond reach

 

The city I knew has changed as well

A grander jewel

With deeper shadows

As for my wonder Ghats – how long

Before bucolic charm

Turns to success, tourism,

Perhaps, there is nothing to go back to

Except for monsoon melancholy and memories

 

It is too quiet here, and I stare up

At the sheets of everlasting clouds

As if the monsoons have arrived

Out of season, beyond continents

But I light up –

The earth and its kindred souls

May change, such are the rules

Yet, the skies – who can change you now?

The same clouds floating for eternity

Monsoons here, Mankal there

Bringing solace to lost souls;

So I smile, as the rains come

And wash my despair

Even as a summer’s dusk

Feels the borrowed wetness

And the petrichor of faraway lands…

 

1^st February, 2026