Yesterday I visited Cherrapunjee.
Visited the scenes of my boyhood escapades
Looked for the crooks of the trees
Where we perched on exam Sundays
Hidden from the sun, the warden
Plucking berries with the squirrels and birds
Reciting poetry and chasing apparitions.
But they are gone, all gone.
The beautiful huts are still there
With a coat of coal and limestone dust
But not the beautiful trees without.
I traced the trail of the river
Where as truant boys we frolicked
With some fear of the master's cane
And loved the half cooked picnic.
Tried to find the mountain pool that once
Swallowed a friend and almost me!
But, there's only a faint string
Among the ragged cheek bones, and where
The eye was, just a dry hollow.
A pound of flesh and more exacted!
The mighty falls are gone and
In their stead the quarries resound
Rat holes and palaces jostle for space.
From afar I hear old Kong Yulin
Cry "How green was my valley!"