Home Endearment

Home Endearment
The place I love the most is my town.
A tiny dot in the nation's map.
Its outset looks as in old tales.
It is a small wonder.
Its streets, tiled houses,
petty shops and century- old schools,
encompassed by green, emerald paddy fields.

I love the scenes,
even as a bus rushes past me,
sending a cloud of thick, browny dust
up into the air.
I long for its smells.


The bus stand congested with traffic,
the deafening din,
the cries of conductors, sweet sellers, beggars,
the village souls who rush in and out……


I love my people,
dirty and poorly dressed,
coarse, rural dialect speaking,
their teeth stained.
(years of betel leaf chewing)

The little lasses,
with jasmine on their hair,
rush forth in the lanes and by lanes.

Cobblers, coolies, torch –repairers,
fruit vendors,
the sundry scenes of a rurban fair.

Yet, the spot I love the most
is but my home in Temple Street.

Glossary:

1. emerald -- a jewel

2. lass - girl

3. helter – skelter - disorderly state

4. rurban - -- neither rural or urban

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Copyright reserved © 2007 New Delhi, India

Ramesh Iyengar