BY SAUMYA LAKSHMAN
No "ergonomic" recliners can feel the same
as that age-old, wrinkled cane "easy chair,"
awoken from its slumber ever so intermittently
by grandpa's slow, incessant rocking at siesta.
Those black and brown leather-cushioned chairs
I'd plop on after just another day at school;
the old veena case in which music lay asleep,
like Sleeping Beauty awaiting her prince charming.
My feet promptly recreate the rough sensation
of the vintage mosaic tiles strewn about the floor,
with tiny, indescribable patterns etched into them
like a poem written in some foreign language.
Those rigid, red doors demarcating the balcony,
folding into one another until stacked away to a corner –
rich with dust from years, untouched, unused,
like the memories of my childhood home, tucked away in my mind.
All that remains now is a heap of rich dust.
Like children building sand castles of their dreams,
they promise to create a mansion with the dust.
"A mansion for modern aspirations," they claim –
A new name, a new beginning, best out of waste.
In the heap of rich dust, on floors claimed by a new generation,
I trespass briefly, looking for what could be mine –
the kitchen sets and Barbie dolls I'd probably left behind,
the snakes and ladders game we'd probably left halfway.
I climb on to a ladder, I slide down a snake,
trying to navigate the topsy-turvy modern world.
All I find is a withered leaf rustling by the heap,
whispering the story of my childhood home.