Clouds in the valley...

Facing amber skies, we wait The golden sun to fall, Tourists, tourists everywhere, Who only shout and squall   Noisy people, each of them, A shutterbug about to be, How many photos will they take, Never again to see   What was there to see, in fact Not even a beach of gold, Yet, the sunsets are ambrosial That’s what I was told   ‘The sun’s about to set behind Those silhouette hills in black,’ My driver tried to inspire me But then I asked him back   ‘Those hills, are they in Andaman? Couldn’t we go that far?’ Dilip smiled and answered back ‘No one lives there, Sir!’   ‘Its another island far away, Where the Jangils used to thrive, People hardly live there now But smugglers - and those who dive!’   The sun had turned now carmine red While I looked upon my phone, Ruttland Island was its name – The isle of the unknown   The sun set fast behind the hills, The skies glowing bright, Sc...

Here, in the citadel of silent pain We can only read - Of tales of some of the suffering souls A fraction of their immortal deed   So many sons of the motherland dead In these isles of a paradise sea Do we even know the price they paid That today we call ourselves free   The pilgrims who know flock one by one To Veer Savarakar’s lonely cell, While the hundred other Veers in the other cells Stare and cry and silent wail   I look at the locks, the tetris bricks, Guilt at our youth, our uselessness Whatever we do, will it be enough To face one martyr’s teary gaze?   If only these ochred walls could speak Could we complete a single tale? Instead, we take photos and tag the world, ‘Look, I have visited Cellular Jail!’   Hundreds of names adorn the walls From Punjab, Bengal, Madras, Bihar, There are thousands more, forgotten names Unknown soldiers, interred this far   I climb atop the Cellular – star, ...

  There’s a song of exile everywhere, Notes of melancholy too, A tune of longing where you go Of humming in the blue   The motes of gloom that float around Long not just for the past, To a comfort home we all left once To forever be outcaste   They sigh as well for a sliver of peace To a refuge that we long, Won but lost in the wheel of time That leaves behind a song   A  shelter land, a bed of grass Stars in the skies above, That distinct home in every heart The last abode of love   But hard it is to seek that peace So far removed that rest, That each of us are in exiled lands Fighting each a test   It’s not the seven seas we cross It’s the havens that we lose, That we turn migrants right at home With nothing left to choose   We are all then souls in exiled lands Longing to return Humming notes of melancholy While we silent burn   For home remains a distant dream With tatt...

  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...

  Far beyond these Sisters three Are sistrens many more, So ancient that, we’ve lost a lot Of this old earth and her lore   For, beyond the tourist tales that stop At Katoomba’s vantage scarp, Song-lines start from an older age, And time begins to warp   Taking us to an antique past, When bunyips roamed our land, And thylacines were sketched on rock By the wise melanic hand   The same hand wrote these songs to guide Pilgrims to far-off trails, To scale million miles through desert sands And crumbling hills and vales   And songline paths criss-crossed this land Landmarks on every page, Mental maps for this ancient land Passed down from age to age.   They say, Katoomba’s sisters are the start For a songline to the west, To the Kimberley plains and Pilbara At the far end of this quest Six thousand kilometres in a song To Karijini’s petroglyphs, The land, they say, where it all began The harbour to...

‘Choo, choo’ the engine sounds Here starts the wizened train, ‘Choo. Choo’ again it hums And we’re lost in time again   A cloud of steam engulfs us all, As if a tunnel unto time, Can you smell the burning coal and smoke? Can you feel the sooty grime?   For a hundred years, these engines rolled And hurtled on these hills, Their echoes sound even today Their roar, the valley fills   As Whitton’s dream conquered the Blues, The little colony grew, Engines of steam traversed the land – Earthy, red and new   And tracks of iron forged these hills In these ancient lands, a scar As locomotives sped past zig-zag hills To Katoomba and afar     With changing times, the old gives way For new roads and rails to grow Though plenty clues are to be found If you run a little slow   Of the older times, the Age of Steam When the hills were conquered all, A mural here, a memoir there – Or rolling stock upon ...

  And every time, there’s emptiness I look to the Southern Cross, That, there’s kings as well, by mortals us Staring at their loss   To lose it all, you ever had And move to distant skies Some keep staring with their lonely eyes Others, turn to stars all wise   We struggle all for thousand years Bereft of poor a home, So much we see but its emptiness In the parsecs that we roam   Trishanku stares, He knows it all The passion in these tears, Exiled ‘tween heaven and earth Now for a million years   Were those stars enough? The Universe? Was it worth all left behind? In the nebula of your eternity Was there a truth to find?   I don’t know the starlight you have seen I don’t know what you’d say All I know is from loneliness In the years I’ve been away   That, despite the trials and quests we have Despite the laurels won, Despite the trillions in the Milky Way There is a single sun   ...