ACCUSTOMED EARTH

One’s life is a bridge

over which he/she alone

has the monopoly

or put it mildly

the sole ownership

bestowed upon him/her which is  

already decided by one’s destiny

so be it.

-------The sunrise as a baby girl

attired in birthday suit 

then with the river of time flowing

evolve into a child

clad in baby frocks.

As a village lass in skirt and jacket

sometimes extending up to the ankles

sometimes getting shortened up to the knees

she was a village lass with

anklets tingling, tingling and tingling

with her every movement.

With her friends

most of them girls in their teens

the period

they indulged in colourful dreams, fantasies and

teenage love.

Time never stops

time keep on racing ahead

with lightening speed

and with the destiny demanding

she be uprooted from the sylvan surroundings

and be planted on the soil of metropolis.

She missed her childhood friends,

the wonderful world of greenery

where ponds, streams, rivulets

rivers and lakes, steep hills

and thick forests all she

lost badly.

During her first few months she felt like

a fish out of water

at the outset,

nostalgia, home-sickness

anything you might call it

natural it was.

Without she being

aware of a series of developments

on a daily basis  

and ear-splitting surroundings

she got evolved into a sophisticated girl

and she got accustomed with the way the

city moved ahead

surrendering to the fatal charm of the metropolis.

She had already bid goodbye to 

the glorious days she spent

in the sylvan surroundings she was blessed with once.

The  skirt and jacket gone

the everyday pilgrimage

to the rural temple gone

the anklets which

gave her movements tinkling

tinkling and tinkling gone

everything the village

had gifted her profusely  gone

now she,

you see 

she is a typical, sophisticated city girl

with her once long flowing hairs cut to size

she frequented the beauty parlours

and in the place  of jackets, skirts and sarees

her sartorial elegance underwent

incredible changes.

Now she is seen in

tight jeans and T-shirts, churidhars, salwar and kameez

pants and shirts, all colourful

and a number of friends,

all typical city youth.

She cares not what all she has lost

with she being planted on the

city soil

she cares not, cares not

cares not,

either pretending to be unaware of

or she gets no time

to reflect upon those old glorious days

while she was a rural lass….