POEM_: An Arrival

And lo!
It is India
My long awaited, long lost India.
India, in rains.

Far from the dust and sand
the burning sun, the scorched earth
the dead land
I come back to you
My everloving India.
In rains.

Life I see
in every breath of the monsoon,
in every gust of the cool fresh wind,
in every blade of glistening grass.

Life I see
in the grey muddy slums of Bombay,
in the shoves and the jostles at the VT,
in the speeding and the stalled locals
which acquire a certain elegance
with the ground wet under them;
even in the sulky faces
of the Indian Airlines hostesses
who are either incapable of joy
or short of the glue
that makes the plastic smiles stick.

And life I see
in the gay frolics
of the young and not-so-young boys
naked on the Chowpatty beach,
celebrating the youth, not just their own,
but of their earth too.

Life I see in everything
for I am in love
with India,
in rains.

- owais

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This was first published in the book, 'Love?'.