
Tearing apart the lull
Of summer routines,
My mother and I,
Scuttle towards the car,
With hopes of a respite
From recollecting
The after taste of
Luscious, honeyed mangoes.
She the mellifluous driver,
I, the furtive companion,
Trudge along in reverse,
No destination in sight,
While the sun blares on,
Playing broken records
Of heat and dust
On the parched windshield.
Vexed, I open my copy
Of Twilight in Delhi,
Its words a frosty balm
For the searing summer,
As my mother
Switches on the radio.
Kishore Kumar barges in,
His voice slyly crooning
Ek Ladki Bheegi Bhagi Si,
Quietly melting
The discordant noise
Of sweltering silence.
His baritone lingers on,
Suturing the unpaved paths,
Till an ineluctable bump
Sends us tumbling backwards
Through the cyclone of time.
Suddenly I am five,
Tardy for my bus
On the first day
After summer vacations.
My mother swiftly
Races the car,
Cursing the crisscrossed hands
Of a mismatched clock,
While I scamper
Towards the hefty bonnet.
Bored of the distance,
I dreamily hunt
For slices of me
In dark corners,
Mourning the loss
Of another home
I physically outgrow of.
Gradually, I settle down
In the crevices
Of that familiar trunk,
My hands twisted,
My legs warped,
My smile as bright
As the midday sun,
While my mother speeds
Towards the amber dawn,
The school still miles away.
Through the misty glass
I see the smudge,
Of a crescent moon
Unwilling to disappear
Despite the receding darkness.
Only then do I realise
That every once in a while,
The fading night
Cannot help smiling back.
Suyashi Smridhi is an aspiring writer and journalist from Patna. Her work has been published on platforms like Feminism in India, sbcltr.in, Coldnoon- International Journal of Travel Writing and Travelling Cultures amongst others. She is an alumnus of the Summer Institute, University of Iowa, a two-week creative writing cum cultural exchange program between India, Pakistan and the US.
