A Drive to Faridabad (poem)
The glittering malls
Cars in demographic explosion
The American weekending
and rumpled housewives in wannabe shopping.
Dreams pockmarked by recession.
And yet, the gentle spring breeze
caressing the dusk
brings whiffs of memory
slices of history
at Dara Shikoh's Gate
In washed-out brown, with a majesty,
clean as a warrior's spine
We ignore the modern aberrations
and map the road from Peshawar to Calcutta
measure virtually
the yonder path built by the goodly king
of a brief reign:
Fallen Mughals, Genghis Khan,
The Slave Dynasty.
As we turn back home through the bridge
the empty space in the fields,
left out of vain realtors' reach,
speak of magic.
And I hear hoofbeat whispers
in the highways of my mind.
(c) N. Madhavan, 2009
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