On my selling on a day in the blazing May
I was looking for a small place for a light bite
when I noticed through my heat dazed eyes
the signboard "Snack Bite".

Inside was the peaceful coolness of a suburb bylane
and I would have pretty soon dozed off
but for the strong smoke of spice, garlic and onion
that shut out every senses except hunger.

No menu card, sir, the waiter cut the silence,
on our menu at this hour is only fish fingers,
all else sold out.

No problem I said, I have been here for a light bite.
How many pieces come with a plate?

Ten, sir, superbly fried.

By ten minutes the steaming thing was before me
ten red crispy slices of fish fingers
and I immediately got into business
remembering what my ma used to say,
To a hungry mouth every food tastes fine
and so neat and fine the pieces looked
so artfully arranged on the plate like human fingers
I reflected on the pause having finished the fifth.

Human fingers? I froze in terror,
why didn't I notice
leftovers of crunched bones and nails
on my plate?

The only other man at the table, I heard
was ordering for another plate.

Scrolling through all the pictures
We took of ourselves
All up to no good
What kind other shenanigans
Could we still have gotten
Ourselves in?

For each insult
We had a laugh
For each injustice
We had a sarcastic remark
The memories flow through me
The pain inflicted upon us
And all the tears that flowed
As a result of chaos.

We broke rules and vows
The vows friends make
We broke each other's hearts
And we broke mindsets
Only to glue them back together
In the right order this time.

But beneath this all
There was something deeply personal and unrelated...

I trew a rock and an insult
Through the glass
That protected your ivory tower
I hated you for all the wrong reasons
And barricated myself in
For all the right reasons

But then when I lost
The will and the strength
To go through all the details again
The continuous rambling that goes through my brain
I found myself disarmed
In the fact that when it comes down to it

I just got my heart broken
And threw in my own windows
In the process of it all
Because I couldn't break any more of yours
The screams of pain
And the tears of sorrow
Have emerged from beneath the anger
And I have nothing left
To arm myself with against you.

Days flash past my shadow
Unable to distinguish your face.

Missing someone is overestimated
An individual can't be missed
But how you felt in his presence
Will subsist.

Love conquers as endless matter
Thus exposing your heart is key,
For a new world to perceive.

An unknown yet
familiar ardor rushes through my veins,
I thence forsee you're present but somehow
Gone away.

Humankind around neglected you
Trust is reasonably locked into your gut
Disowning is no option,
Neither patronizing you;
Been there myself.

Dark nights
Dark thoughts;
Disoriented your head,
But reincarneted who you are today.

Don't contemplate there is no better.
Stand high on your feet,
Drown yourself on memories
That once made you
Complete.

Perhaps I'll never be your future,
Perhaps my existence to you is nonsense.
Straightforwardly;
Merely knowing you're no longer lost,
Will be my cue for moving on.

Indian pipes rise ghostly
from ancient compost
of needled tears shed
white bells corpse-silent
shunning Light’s vital touch
sleeping instead in symbiotic beds
of gracious hosts, who in turn
kiss the feet of living Giants
lushly burning gilded rays
to fuel their green economy

Over the years I stop at that point
only to board a vessel
to the other side of the river
for further journey to the sea
but for the brief period of waiting
I keep pondering about the name of the place

Harwood Point.

Who was this Harwood?
what was he doing here?
what good deed made him deserving
to name the place after him?

I am still baffled
after a quarter of a century.

Googling throws up many Harwoods
dead and distinguished
but there's no clue to connect any of them with
Harwood Point.

I imagine he was one of the administrators
who left the shore of England
to be stationed at this place a century or two ago
then a tract of almost inaccessible jungle
for surveying the prospects of trade
for the East India Company
but that leads me to further questions.

Was he a noble soul that loved the place
and came to like the people there
so much so that the natives after his departure
made his name permanently etched there?

Or was he among those typical British Officers
who vented their wrath for having been interned
to a god forsaken mangrove wilderness
treated the natives with extreme disdain
proving himself worthy of his position
and duly rewarded by his masters
by making him a part of history
ironically undefined and unrecorded.

I love to think though
on a night when the moon
made the tide rebellious
he walked into the river
and was lost for good
and to this day none knows for sure
what happened to Mr. Harwood.