Uprooted

I walk through my roots,

the earthen path uneven beneath my feet,

and the steamy air caressing my cheek.

The streets of Kolkata pulse

 with energy, ebbing and flowing

with the syncopated rhythm of a city

that runs on its own schedule.

I am immersed in a cacophony of noises-

the boisterous honking of cars,

frenzied conversations and

customers bartering in street-shops.

The vibrant billboards, brilliant sarees,

and intricately painted buses 

are a dazzling kaleidoscope of color

juxtaposed against

the stormy grey monsoon sky

oblivious to it all.

I am a spectator, 

lost in the hustle and bustle 

of this unfamiliar world,

glimpsing a life I will never know.

The scenes swirl around me,

the Kolkata cityscape blurring, dissolving,

replaced by cerulean sky,

viridescent leafy boughs

and rows of tidy, nearly identical houses.

The tranquil silence of our sleepy, 

mundane town descends upon me.

Those memories of a faraway land

are set aside, pushed under 

the everyday thoughts and worries,

buried deep.

But they linger, echoing,

woven through the shimmering silk kurtas,

tucked in the loose Darjeeling tea leaves,

embodied by the dancing melody of the raga

on my dad’s favorite sitar track,

in my grandmother’s chutneys we 

bring back home to slowly savor. 

And I recall those three weeks in August

which now seem but a hazy reverie...