Summer!

Like a warm blanket,
the air is playful now
Caressing knees,
tousling hair
Under a stronger sunlight,
northern breeze
Summer isn’t far now!

Okay, it’s not actually summer yet, but a mid-spring heatwave that’s pushed the mercury into the 30’s certainly makes you feel like it is! Plus, writing rhymes in the park after reading Gerald Durrell certainly lends itself to being inspired in these sorts of directions

The days lengthen and roses bloom
Arching overhead, leafy trees
The idyllic summer days of childhood
Painted warm and golden in our memories

The smell of hot, sunbaked dirt
Ans sunscreen acrid, salty brine
The sound of crashing waves on sand
The joy of days that were all mine

Endless it felt, those whimsy weeks
Creating stories and adventures galore
A thousand games in a thousand different ways
Bicycles, beaches, books and more

Oh, to live in those days again
To have months of nothing planned
To explore heat soaked infinities
To the sound of cicadas and sand

Breathless Diwali

The sun had set but the stars weren’t out
It was too polluted for our sight
They’d taken me to the top of their apartment
Climbing concrete stairs, stepping over diya’s light

It was only the second day of it all
But the sugar rush had already kicked in
Barely slept, dazed from jetlag
This felt like a dream, fueled on adrenalin

A cacophony of sounds surrounded us
Alone on that rooftop, the sprawling city lay
A jungle of highrises, a maze of streets
Car horns and fireworks every which way…

I breathe

And the air catches in my throat, I can’t-
Swirling breezes carrying smells of smoke,
Cooking food, gunpowder, decay and flowers
A world I had dreamed of for hours and hours
And there it all was;

In the horizon’s haze city lights glowed
Each window a family celebrating
Colours colliding, a kaleidoscope of displays
And fireworks around us, showering, exploding
Millions around me, this world so vivid
Every sensory input buffetted with just so much
Millenia culminating in this modern patchwork
And here it was, hitting me on all sides

Too overjoyed to breathe, too enraptured to cry
What a dazzling moment it was – Mumbai