by K.V. RAGHUPATHI

 

My boyhood days

I yearned to dream and recall with sickness

on a summer evening by the lakeside:

New energy I found with no teacher’s scorns to endure

when summer came around!

I roamed long, like a little monk

often skipping the class,

paused to gaze and wonder at the sky 

dotted with the drifting clouds lazily,

each one on a canvas as if painted, contemplating;

across the fields and streams, on the ridges and bridges,

climbing the fences and wind-tossed trees like a bear cub, 

slithering through the branches like a snake, 

frogging, crawling, and creeping;

like a butterfly I flitted

smelling the flowers and leaves and licking the bark,

absorbing solitary creations,

and falling on the ground while balancing on a thin branch

with bruises on the kneecaps, shins, and palms

yet rising and walking off upright like a wounded soldier.

 

Many memories, sweet and sad, 

rise like tides creeping in through the open landscape –

the taste of summer mangoes, sapota, and small berries

and the drone of bees, a rhythmic gallop of babblers,

silent spring evenings with many colours,

drowsy summer afternoons, fresh post-summer showers, 

copious October rains, a flight of cormorants,

rolling meadows and storm-washed heights and fields;

I rode, I jumped, I leaped from the wake,

tripped and rose with a laugh, cry, and shout

mingling with the rustle of leaves

and distant calls of birds of the countryside;

hunted in the hay and chased in the bay

pranky birds and crawling little creatures in the breeze-blown open fields

and mottled dogs in the streets, multi-hued cocks and hens in the courtyard;

climbed the hilltops and basked in the water pools

I had fierce adventures in my unrestrained play.

 

The bullock cart’s tread I heard

and the fall of water, roadside down into the ridge

with hooves drumming the ground;

I hopped along behind to climb;

each time I pushed myself, I stumbled like an ice skater,

yet fumbled along with redoubled hope.

 

When husking came around

I hear the hooded men and women sing 

with radiant cheeks and blushes deep

to unburden the heat and monotony;

on the floor the hens scratch with glee for the last grains,

a picture etched behind I see

the harvested fields, the green hills, and the splotchy blue sky

that hid the world so wide from me;

never a scene so luring as I gazed upon.

 

I played with sticks, stones, tops, and marbles,

hide and seek, police and thief, hopscotch, zero point, 

tug of war and war games,

had singsongs, tales of ghosts,

built dens on the sand with tools made of fantasy

that I called homes,

toy carts to wheel in the mud,

made catapults to hit black berries, 

bows and arrows to target distant trees,

scrumped ripened mangoes and guavas in summer,

often caught and ears clipped, I never lipped. 

Such long-time fun I had, I hold them divine innocent.

Looking back in nostalgia

the boyhood of the boy,

each moment like a thread woven in the fabric,

painted with the vibrant colours of freedom and joy.

If these were all dreams, I wonder!

 

Many, many things my memory leaks

like the morning light through a latchhole

fresh and flowing, stay with me like old friends 

in my ripening age I cannot forsake

I cannot set them on fire.

There is nothing that stings like memory,

while sweet hours fade and pass

like shadows in a forest.

Now, I regret, all those funs I miss in the little soldiers

loaded with bags of books and homework

have stopped growing!