By: Priya Anand

Palette of scenes from a train

a bored guard on a snail paced goods train
an empty platform swept spotlessly clean
a closed snack stand with red shutters
a lone man on a bench pondering life or the lack of it
vertically challenged trees with dusty leaves interspersed by stone benches
a lone engine idling on a track
overhead electrical wires waiting patiently to power a train
stock piles of rusted rail sleepers
an airplane shaped water tank on a roof
a moss filled lake with half submerged tree trunks
a tar road that twins with the track
empty yellow school buses parked in a row
a forlorn fairground that has lost its menace in daylight
a coconut grove gone to seed
a meandering rivulet that has no agenda
rail road workers in orange hats taking a break
a native cow ready for its next ‘jallikattu’
a lone motorbike parked near a thicket
a television antenna on a tin roof
white storks nesting on a tree
a half built house with naked bricks
a cemetery with three graves
a lungi clad man emerging from a community toilet
a church with a stone facade
a busy four laned highway
a village through a lens of winter mist
I close my eyes anticipating sleep
Nothing new or is there?

Summer

hot afternoons with cousins
playing French cricket with a rubber ball that
draws howls from the batter whose legs face the sting of the ball

rose bushes and hibiscus plants taking on the role of students
and me the teacher patrolling with a long stick

newspapers neatly laid out
under the Parijat tree to catch early morning blooms

palms filled with a round, uneven ball of curd rice and
a smear of pickle

manning a library that my aunt ran in the garage, and
issuing books that may never be returned
visiting Higginbothams to curate books for children,
my cousin chooses Biggles and
I, Nancy Drew

engrossed in a romantic series from the bound ladies weekly books in my grandfather’s study, only to howl in disappointment that the last instalment is missing
(Did the handsome rancher kiss the freckled secretary?)

green peppers and baby mangoes marinated in brine,
stored in secret dark recesses that keep
eager fingers at bay

peeking over the fence to watch the newly weds next door
exchanging sweet whispers

the creak of the gate as we swing on it our feet precariously perched on
rotting
wooden
slats
leaning over the well and watching our hazy reflections in
rain water puddles that we destroy with a stone

my grandmother learning driving on an old vauxhall
but never getting past the gate

Summer is a hazy memory of what one chooses to remember
All other thoughts buried like a hidden treasure never meant to be discovered