Nostalgia

Among palm fronds and paddy fields Stands veiled an ancient structure Erstwhile the abode of innocence and ease A house now left empty of its throng Sheltering a happy brood, once it throbbed and thrived Within whose walls, we were born and bred Crying and whining, laughing and prattling Pampered and cared, we grew as kids Corrected and controlled, we grew into adults Here we shared a thousand mingled thoughts A hundred hopes, dreams and fears Saw the dawn of placid summer morns And the descent of cold winter nights. With hurrying feet as Time treaded past Migrated we to new terrains and climes Like young birds out from their nests depart To wider skies and heady heights. Sweet home! Earthly haven! Harbour us once more under thy roof To soothe the turbulent hearts into peaceful stillness To quench the wayward fancy to curl into primordial lineage To relish once again that Arcadian bliss And to splice together the snapped up ties. But Oh! The love of our parents Can it be retrieved? They sleep content within their cold alabaster cells Will they come and flit unseen To shower their benediction on us Begotten of their flesh? As my limp feet tread the land unwilling The past undulates and memories stretch incessant My moist eyes hold back the flood of grief To see thy glory fled, thy grandeur vanished The neat courtyard where we romped and played Now overgrown with thistles and thorny plants! Lo! Under the Jamun tree, lie un gathered Black glossy succulent fruits Gone rotten in scattered heaps! Time elapses, wrought with change Change! Nature's irreversible law The joy that we had in times of yore Far surpasses the sheen of new opulence and pomp Around the hearth where Mother blew the flame alive We sat cuddled round on December morns Watching lazily the wisps of smoke Curling up from the damp piece of half burnt wood And ate the ‘rotis' right from the pan Now we have kitchens of gleaming chrome Costly gadgets and neat tiled hearths But the food we eat tastes so bland Lacking something of that homely fare Richly spiced with maternal love And served hot from pots blackened by the flames On hot summer days, we helped our father A tiller of soil who loved his toil Carry dried bales of hay For the milking cows and their tawny calves Who gave us pails of milk and curd And heaps of cow dung for our fields. Memories come clamouring down Like the lash of cascading rain Here, I stand transfixed, An alien, At the threshold of my own home Visited by recollections sweet and sour Hesitant to encounter the unpalatable truth That the pleasant fields I once walked over And the old familiar faces, I love to look on Are gone! Gone forever, never to return.