WHILE SHIFTING

WHILE SHIFTING

While shifting

From one city to another

A person takes with him

All his belongings

But, still leaves behind

Some fragments of memories

For picking time to time.

Leaves behind

A fragment of past time

Hanging like calendar from sky,

Dark silent roads

On which

He had been wandering

Missing his home.

Leaves behind a room

That had given refuge to him

In sun, rain

And all the adverse weathers.

Whose roof had sheltered him

.In whose four walls

He had subtracted,added,

Multiplied and divided himself.

Leaves behind

Tree like friends

Who had shaded his head

In the scorching heat of gloom.

And whose rooms

Became his mother

In the sullen evenings.

Leaves behind

So many things

A patch of Sun

On his roof.

Noise of pigeons

Sitting on antennae.

Kids playing noisily

In streets.

Listening to that noise

Many a times

He had recollected

His childhood.

Echoing sound of

'Japji'  from Gurudwaras, at dawn.

Shouts of vegetable sellers

Calls of milk-man

Voice of newspaper vendors

Leaves behind

So many voices.

So many petty relations

That he had nurtured,

Irrigated with his affection.

While moving from

One city to another

Takes along all

Bag and baggage

And takes along

Some patches of recollections

To illumine

The dark recesses of his mind

Time to time.

A heart touching poem, originally composed in Punjabi by Dr. Amarjit Singh Kaunke and translated into Punjabi by myself. This is an extract from REVERIES, Punjabi Version of his poems, by me.

RAJNI CHHABRA