Mini Ganga

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Mini Ganga

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Where rain, the lively

Playfully sliding the thatched slopes

Rushes to gutters in streams

With dried husks and leaves

And a new resolve to start everything

Afresh, along its muddy, swift course...

Where the expectant mother fish

Agog with her creative expectation

Escapes the dried pond

To end her summer quarantine

Braving the threats of silent annihilation,

And emits life to fill the vacuum...

Where the thundering frogs

Leap-frogging one upon the other,

Remonstrate with one and all

Over the ignominy of yesteryear,

And take yet another chance with destiny,

Their feeble limbs notwithstanding....

Where the haughty succulents,

Overwhelmed by the watery affluence,

Spring up from hell and assert

Their right to arrogance undiluted

Digesting sludge and discards

Along an embellished crimson hedge...

Where reptiles drift helter-skelter

Seeing their abode pitiably inundated

No longer a time for slumber it is, they run

By instinct for catching the straw

And stumble their way

To the safe haven of uprooted cacti...

Where the seasoned bamboo spine

Full of hatred for its struggling neighbourhood

Lies clandestine in the melted soil

Awaiting an ultra-soft-target–

The cracked heel of a hapless child

Wading for crabs for his midday feast...

Where waters evaporate

Drawing a close to the lively spell,

The autumn rays soon overtake

Driving fish sibling to premature deaths

And lily shoots to desiccate and hibernate

Under a touching prayer for a quick rebirth...

There I learnt my first lessons

Very intricate they are, I am unable to unlearn,

Sometimes I feel

The world has no need of these

But I cannot help being goaded by it

But I cannot keep them far behind.

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PORT BLAIR

11-03-1997