Missing a joint family or a boy’s gang or even an adventurous
childhood
the times I treasured were in the Gulmohar-laden verandahs
a favourite spot tucked under the giant leafy wings
of a grandfather I saw once a year till his death
who had not much to say to me, but every word I clung to
this faraway idol who walked on soft carpets and had
oil paintings on his walls
whose crystal shimmered, flashing over the matches at
Wimbledon
on a wood-encased television that showed The Lion King
a Bangalore morning’s lapping sun caressing that long
white Hindustan Contessa
the stately woman at his porch, a low feline on
wheels smirking lazily across the city
my child eyes saw only vast raintrees flying across crisp blue
skies
donned with bursting thrushes of purple and yellow flowers
and later I dreamed of them among Maths timetables in
another city
once a year visit to the 13th floor view of starry heights
watching wine being poured into hollow bulbs with long
stems
the juiciest fish fingers in the company of fat cigars
elegant dresses and flamboyant shirts on a bed of soft jazz and
ice cube whiskeys
the distant lonely horns on clanking tracks making circles
around meshed windows
a frilly white mosquito net on rosewood bedposts filtering
frail, trembling light
on delicious surrealist nights sleeping in the Dream Room
an unsurveilled indulgence in innocent obsessions of
discovery
in the banished bedroom and stacked up storeroom on the
outskirt
the metallic creak of a dusty trunk
revealing documented treasures of a felicitated past
Padma Shri, Man of the year, replicas of Konark and slides of
Berlin
handshakes with Nehru, presentations to Indira Gandhi and
a serious nod from MLK
the engraved plaque, the embossed tribute, the yellowed
letterheads
a surprise among them; an amusing menagerie
of miniature animals
with as much exquisite detail that into plastic can be shaped
a baboon, a tiger, a camel, a giraffe, an ostrich, a koala, a cat,
a gorilla, a bat
a human head the size of a button, slipping
rolling a percussive raga under a carved Tibetan table
swaying on its head, coming to a crestfallen rest
as the needle on the vinyl makes scratchy circles of
denouement
around the keen, flamboyant crescendos
of my grandfather’s accomplishments
a bell rings, dinner’s ready, carefully placed in white porcelain
with light blue flowers
hard to believe a white plate makes a child feel like a prince
who used to and will again wander schoolyards in
claustrophobic shoes
wincing toes twisting awkward at red ink marks and droning
harangues
passively watching agile kites flick up his
lunch chapatis like trapeze artists
young tentacles in thought
knots that now unravel climbing a mango tree
throwing alphonsoes down for the sweetest chomp, gulp and
smear
building multi-coloured monsters, myths, and spaceships from
the grandest Lego set
burying a pitiful squirrel attacked by a flippant crow under a
huge Christmas tree
getting stuck for hours in an empty garage playing hide and
seek with the help’s kids
knowing that life of the prince was just a brief summer-
holiday fancy
and soon the mind and words would clang around like violent
vessels
flung in the name of misunderstood anger and confused
rebellion
with doors more shut than open, windows more grilled than
clear
but for now, the sky stayed vast, the freedom certain and the
daydreaming;
a curious tryst between the ambition for a glorious past
and a nostalgia for an idyllic future