An Ode to My Birthplace
When I set my sights out of Shillong, thinking I would never have to look back, I was led on by the prospect of better and greater things. I did not appreciate the real value that Shillong was constantly imparting to my existence as I lived in that exotic air. I was under the fallacy that life in Shillong was commonplace, dull and devoid of the excitement the mind craved for, and which it believed existed in greater measure in places outside it. It was after a lifetime of absorbing the world outside of Shillong that I have come to realize that I have had the good fortune to have spent my entire childhood and adolescence in the greenest pasture there ever was - Shillong. Now, when a monster called Covid-19 has put the world in chains, and I am stuck in the center of some godforsaken desert, my mind seeks refuge in that utopia which resides with untarnished glitter in one corner of my heart, and which has never failed to rescue me in times of despair and hopelessness
Below is an effort to put my feelings in verse, although the sensations that they evoke defeat my capacity for description
As I peered up at the cloudless sky
Where a fiery sun was passing by
Baking the land with its white hot light
As imperious it rode in its heavenly flight;
As oppressed brows and cheeks lay wet
with salty drops of sticky sweat;
As the skin is singed and blinded the eyes
And a parched land moans under fervid skies;
As the dust took flight and clouded the air,
And breath is labored and vision blear;
As the prospect ahead looked drowned in drear
And a burthensome mind too weighty to bear;
I retrace my steps on the path I have been
And reflect anew on all that I have seen,
Ever since I fell for that deceitful gleam
Beckoning me to that deluding dream;
And bewail how the world has catechized me
In ways I never imagined I would be;
How it revealed to me colors unseen
And taught me what it means to be mean;
How one human from another to discern
By caste, creed and color it made me learn;
And how the world, so devoid of mercy,
To Mother Nature and her beings can be.
And I think, how much in you I have lost,
And at what a painful, inestimable cost
As despondency makes me clutch thin air,
To find an escape from gloom and despair,
I escape to you and your pristine lair,
To that time so far, but seems so near
I think of you and that home so dear
Your calm, serene face, so crystal clear,
That kindly sun, that caressing breeze,
The leaves and flowers, breathing with ease
Transporting my mind to that blissful state
Of innocence and peace, as as I once sate
On your verdant lap, eyes on your face,
And up in heavens, in the azure blue space,
In the green grass, with the dew on its blades,
Listening to the wind, whistling through your glades,
Walking through your woods, lounging in your Bowers,
Paddling on your waters, soaking in your showers
Oh! Be it I can furl life's crushing spate,
Be it unto you I can consign my fate;
Oh! Be it the lessons I learned I can unlearn
Be it the wealth I earned I can unearn,
Be it anon that I can see in your face
The entire universe and the human race,
Never again to weep, nor ever to mourn,
For the moments with you since I was born;
Be it that my life could skip the fateful morn
Of the day my feet overstepped your bourne,
For the farther I roamed from you on earth,
Scaled its peaks and measured its girth,
More the shores I saw, more its ways I knew
The more I craved to return to you
Below is an effort to put my feelings in verse, although the sensations that they evoke defeat my capacity for description
As I peered up at the cloudless sky
Where a fiery sun was passing by
Baking the land with its white hot light
As imperious it rode in its heavenly flight;
As oppressed brows and cheeks lay wet
with salty drops of sticky sweat;
As the skin is singed and blinded the eyes
And a parched land moans under fervid skies;
As the dust took flight and clouded the air,
And breath is labored and vision blear;
As the prospect ahead looked drowned in drear
And a burthensome mind too weighty to bear;
I retrace my steps on the path I have been
And reflect anew on all that I have seen,
Ever since I fell for that deceitful gleam
Beckoning me to that deluding dream;
And bewail how the world has catechized me
In ways I never imagined I would be;
How it revealed to me colors unseen
And taught me what it means to be mean;
How one human from another to discern
By caste, creed and color it made me learn;
And how the world, so devoid of mercy,
To Mother Nature and her beings can be.
And I think, how much in you I have lost,
And at what a painful, inestimable cost
As despondency makes me clutch thin air,
To find an escape from gloom and despair,
I escape to you and your pristine lair,
To that time so far, but seems so near
I think of you and that home so dear
Your calm, serene face, so crystal clear,
That kindly sun, that caressing breeze,
The leaves and flowers, breathing with ease
Transporting my mind to that blissful state
Of innocence and peace, as as I once sate
On your verdant lap, eyes on your face,
And up in heavens, in the azure blue space,
In the green grass, with the dew on its blades,
Listening to the wind, whistling through your glades,
Walking through your woods, lounging in your Bowers,
Paddling on your waters, soaking in your showers
Oh! Be it I can furl life's crushing spate,
Be it unto you I can consign my fate;
Oh! Be it the lessons I learned I can unlearn
Be it the wealth I earned I can unearn,
Be it anon that I can see in your face
The entire universe and the human race,
Never again to weep, nor ever to mourn,
For the moments with you since I was born;
Be it that my life could skip the fateful morn
Of the day my feet overstepped your bourne,
For the farther I roamed from you on earth,
Scaled its peaks and measured its girth,
More the shores I saw, more its ways I knew
The more I craved to return to you
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