I am a house, an old one

Those who built me? Long gone.

Present owners have no

time or reason now

to live in me; they bow

to demands of a new life

or stubborn wife.

A caretaker coldly oversees,

efficient and bored nurse

to me, his elderly patient.

The acres around thrive,

coconut and betel nut palms

draped with passionate pepper vine.

Small ponds whose ripples shine,

where women once bathed

rubbing golden, oiled bodies

with thaali leaf and lentil paste.

A century ago, a lordly neighbour,

saw a young girl

at her ablutions.

He, confirmed bachelor,

succumbed to her, the family beauty.

Wedding pandals graced my face

children born in cool dark rooms

elders dying in dignity

or senility.

Life in all its forms:

termites, ants, bats,

cows, chickens, wild civet cats,

tethered elephants stealing branches

from leafy mango trees.

My verandas heard discussions,

sheltered from sheets of rain

echoed false and true pain

of mourners, when death visited.

Living and dead bodies lay on mats

in afternoon naps or eternal sleep

on my shining black cement floors.

Monsoon drenched tiled roofs

rattled to falling coconuts,

nesting squirrels tamed as vacation pets.

 by visiting children

Solid, carved teak pillars and doors

bound in  brass, saksha-bolts and locks;

fragrant granary rooms that stored

paata-rent paid in grain by serfs

who once tilled feudal family fields.

My thatte-attic that still has

chests of  old books, musty mementos,

a family hero’s medals from wars,

dry palm leaf  journals of prayer.

I sigh and speak

in every crack and creak

of old walls and tough timbers

singing of and remembering

many lives and events past.

I am still standing. There is hope.

They don’t want to pull me down

or sell my innards to an antique dealer.

I wait for

that one son to return to me

when he

leaves the big city finally.

Then it will be him and me

in peaceful harmony.