In the Forest Bungalow on Diwali Night
By Kaustuv Ghosh
The earth is red, untamed. It crunches below tires.
The exiled poet wrote about it and rain but monsoons
Turn it into reddish-brown muck through which
Black, shiny shoes are discouraged from romping.
Such is the let-down of real-life outside pages.
Still, the air is fresh in winter and the sal trees stand tall
And you may stop in a wayside village, by the communal well,
To buy puffed rice and oily fritters, some with chilli.
They are getting ready for evening festivities and later
There will be a sacrifice and the kids will watch a movie.
There are no bottles of water in the only provision store
But the water is free and tastes sweet and cold.
Then, high speed past forests that look like green walls
And an abrupt breach to reveal a bungalow, red and white.
Foxes sprint across the road by dark and once in a while
A tusker trumpets from a remote stronghold announcing
It has finished a hundred- mile journey and is back home.
There is chicken curry and rice by candlelight and birds are replaced
By cicadas as you dine on china embossed with imperium.
It is not a bad idea, you think, to pause for a day.
You have for company a ghostly retainer, dusty photos
Whisky glasses and ledgers unread for a hundred years.
