A Tale of Three Cities

                                                                                                                                                                                    by Mohan Ramanan

  

                        I

 

I have seen you, Charnock's daughter--

dingy, smog-ridden, pot -holed--

We played cricket in the four forked streets ,

tennis - ball, breaking  brick- bat stumps--

Ball sailing into Thakurda's house,

And he retrieving it and

  deliberately and maliciously

 slicing the ball into half --

dispersing us urchins back to our homes

 for a well - earrned  parental reprimand.

 

 

                        II

 

You have Fort St George on the world's

                    eighth wonder--

meandering , filthy, slime -filled river -ditch,

Not all the salt of the Bengali sea 

    can cleanse your water

which serves as stock for

your dotted slums ,

which catch fire at regular intervals

and feed your two-timing

forked tongued residents  

 

                       III

 

Bhagya loved and was loved

the Musi floods notwithstanding

your palaces  of intrigues

and your streets of insidious aggression

your by-lanes , religiously filthy,

and then your lake of wide expanse

blessed with the detritus of

the annual ten day

carnivalesque

 

 

                          IV

 

I have loved the Strand from where

 William spoke to Wolfgang

about Dushyanta's paramour-

I have under the theosophical Banyan

and the Labouring architecture by the sea

filled my mind

And now I go to the Junk Museum of one man

w atch the clock chiming a dozen

 and in Naidu's bedroom

 close the volume of poems ,

 the threshold to a golden future.