River, I come to you

Pulses enfeebled, throat parched, you lie bare,

The plight of a village girl gang raped, swooned.

My childhood is playmate, Oh Manali River:

Gone are your sand- dunes, soft white as a lamb where

I played, raised castles that soon would crumble.

Heaps of mud instead, the sight aches my eyes.

Graze of my teens, the memory is still green:

How you would toss my boat of recklessness

And turn upside down in the mid-river:

Gone are the strength of your savage currents

That’d grapple around my legs, your floods once

Roared through the rains swirling, surging and foaming

To overwhelm the fields: now at the mercy

Of the concrete python straightened across your way.

Once you had followed my great grand father

Steps dancing hips swaying, a courtesan

Splashing water on the way giggling

Upto the threshold of our ancestral home.

After thirty years of separation

I return to you, the prodigal son

Only to witness your shallow current grasping

While struggling to move on. A drop of tear

Rolls down, a subtle ripplet, the river heaves.

(Image: Dawn at Kurumaly river. Source: Wikimedia)