Sutradhar

 

Perhaps, other places too

Are cloudy today,

Dark blue clouds

Quietly stirring the winds

Perhaps, other people too

Are staring at the clouds now –

They too awaken

To the smell of cold, distant rain

 

That boatsman in Vembanad

Chasing the monsoons

Paddling between pink waterlilies

Hurrying home with his morning catch;

A saffron-gatherer in a distant vale

Picking his precious crops

Before the rains arrive;

A mahout in Sigiriya

 

Taking his tusker for a mud bath

Beyond the ruins of an ancient world;

That farmer in Tonle Sap

Planting paddy, looking up

Hoping this year,

There will be a good harvest

Another Wallace in Borneo

Sweating in the rainforest

 

A monk in purpled isolation

Awakening slowly

To the sound of distant thunder;

A diver collecting black pearls

Engulfed in the dark waters

As the cloudscapes deepen,

And then this poet in a distant city

Looking far, bringing them all together

 

The wayfarers of everyday life

Get unknowingly connected

In this rich invisible parchment of rainwater

But then, I wonder

Could I be, in their shoes?

I sigh, dreaming of distant lands

Could the other characters be sighing too?

Could we exchange places?

 

But the clouds rumble,

No, not today –

For today, I am the Sutradhar

Who strings this song together

I have used the nimbus threads

To unite divided lands,

To bring together people

Who talk different tongues

 

I have gathered them upon a stage

But for a few precious moments alone

For once it rains,

The motley cast will scatter

They will walk along

Each their different weary ways

Nothing to look up

Nothing to be held together

 

 

For now, the play continues,

The actors perform unseen,

In the existence of their daily life

They hear not the applause,

Nor realise as the play concludes,

There is a silent Sutradhar

Invisible behind the curtains;

The rains arrive, the strings dissolve…

 

14^th November 2026