Hidden in my skull are the caves where the endless <br /> <br />Reticular frescoes of my awesome childhood unroll. <br /> <br />Those are the spaces where the banyan trees of Vadodara <br /> <br />Vie with the neems and the mango gardens. <br /> <br />They were born ancient like me — those banyans <br /> <br />With their branch-like roots splayed in empty spaces, <br /> <br />With their huge population of ants and worms, <br /> <br />Bats hanging upside down. <br /> <br />And the public libraries where books printed <br /> <br />On what were once forests in Sweden <br /> <br />Gave me the world's unfathomable texts. <br /> <br />Baroda is what the British called Vadodara. <br /> <br />That's where my deaf and blind great-grandmother died <br /> <br />At the age of 101 — bald, wrinkled, and withered. <br /> <br />That's where we flew kites and learnt to finger <br /> <br />The pussies of eager and willing little girls <br /> <br />On summer afternoons and always upstairs. <br /> <br />That's where we secretly read manuals of black magic <br /> <br />And pornographic books in euphemistic Hindustani <br /> <br />In which it was invariably the dhobi's wife that got laid <br /> <br />After washing the whole town's dirty linen on the ghat. <br /> <br />Could I tell those stories now? <br /> <br />After sixty years of fermenting in my own vat? <br /> <br />Vadodara's vats are full of such sexy scent!<br /><br />Dilip Chitre<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/frescoes/
