TREASURE TROVE OF LIFE

In my youthful days
in the village
I used to sleep
all through the day.
Except when Amma
woke me up
during the lunch time,
I got drowned
deep in slumber.
With the serpent of
darkness eclipsing the daylight
I woke up,
took a cold bath
in the rivulet just
infront of my home,
came back refreshed,
by that time
stars and moon
started shining up in the sky
and they
got reflected on the baseline of
transparent waters of the rivulet
devoured me the
beautiful star-struck,
moon-struck, landscape,
draped in the moonlight,
then entered my room,
and switched on the light.
Until the supper
got ready I sat
on the cowdung pasted verandah
watching the moving shadows
heading to the temple
with oil-wick lamps
flickering all around
a visual treat literally.
I would start reading,
I read a lot those days,
a giant book-shelf
with books arranged
systematically
a treasure-trove of life.
Life in its various
facets – tears, joys, agony,
separations, reunions,
nostalgia, abnormalities
as well as peculiarities
even eccentricities as well as madness
all living together like
the vast world we live in.
I stayed awoke
throughout the night
while the world around
caught in the web of sleep,
in the light of the
table-lamp, I read and wrote a lot.
Ocassionally
took glassful of black-tea
from the flask
sometimes sat idle
for hours
listening to the
musical silence,
crickets chirping,
nightingales singing,
kind of eerie silence
sometimes I felt.
Time moved fast
without me knowing,
only when Amma reminded
from my creative pursuits
as the morning approached
nearer and nearer
to caress and embrace me
and with birds in droves
flew past their nests
flapping their wings
chirping, singing
the blowing of conch shell
from the temple nearby
after the daily chores
after the breakfast
I jumped to my bed
for the marathon sleep
of the day.
Now
after years in my
beloved village,
I find myself in the
faraway city
a roaring city like a tiger
day-in and day-out
no respite whatsoever,
my day time in the office
continuation of the
previous day’s chore
all mechanical, monotonous
adding to my existential angst.
Night in the city
an extension of the day
the same roaring tiger throughout,
the hustle and bustle.
Recall me my
youthful days in the
village
comparing me my not-so
youthful days in the
city with inertia
and anger combined.
The city which
turned my life upside down
the city which
upset my
sleeping pattern.
The musical silence,
the nightingale singing,
cock crowing
heralding the arrival of dawn,
crows crowing,
crickets chirping,
the eerie silence
birds in droves,
flying past,
flapping wings,
speaking their language,
all, my treasures of yesterday.