05/03/2009

Colonial Foolishness


Swirling smoke comes whooshing out.

Writhing and squirming, away it floats.

Beautiful clouds mist the sky.

Clouding the way as the train comes screaming by.

Awakened from their lazy slumber, the birds fly...

We begin a slow journey towards a sleepy town.

Warm in a sleepy blanket of white it sleeps, cares unknown.

Figures of people silhouetted against the smoky white.

Hundreds of stories fading into beautiful light.

A new day creeps up, lives change.

Darkness flies, mysterious minds remain.

A few fools like me trying a brush with heritage.

As if money can buy, the days gone by.

When ladies with beautiful hats,

And men with coat-tails like the ears of cats,

Travelled with dreams, with stars in their eyes.

As twinkling as the stars that lot the blade hilly night skies.

Settle down to a land unknown,Sipping tea in a cozy town.

We fools now search for those dreams.

Having lost our own little stories.

We just grasp at what doesn’t belong to us.

Not even realizing that by stretching out,

we cant grab dreams in our hands.

Just like we can’t grab a butterfly in its flight.

Or touch a rainbow's colorful bands.



PS:-Inspired by my recent sojourn to the hills of eastern India...especially the toy train ride from Darjiling to the small town of Ghoom(so named by Tagore).

3 comments:

Indrajit said...

Excellent !!!

i could feel the place from the words here.

:)

Only in terms of the rhyming pattern, you might want to revisit d poem again.

This small thing barring, the poem rocked...

Chanchal said...

I ll be humble, the previous ones were better.

However, that something I could never do, perhaps..

Love
Ban

Gautam Anand said...

loved this..