Well you may not agree.
But in retrospect, I am sure that
All of us rue(d) someday
For not possessing a simple thing,
Yes, a simple thing
We really wanted to have it for long,
Well within our reach,
Yet, never possessed it for no worthwhile reason.
Just that!

Time rolls on.
The desire to possess stays on
And so does the neglect
And the idea of having not possessed
Hangs on to us without fanning
Any further desire to possess it.
And slowly
The thing we so long yearned to possess
Begins to enter the list of ‘dispensable’s

Then, just then, comes a fleeting moment
An irreversible moment at that,
That bangs you on your forehead
And the lack of the cherished thing at hand
Mountains the guilt to Himalayan heights.
No matter the world lies at your feet after that,
All bliss is engulfed in that moment’s want.

That was a hot summer afternoon
On Chennai platform.
Sun was blazing at his best
And thirst was ruling the roost.
As mercury scaled upwards
Tongues were put on fire.
Every soul ran for water
From every possible source.
Suddenly the train started, and
People hurried tumbling towards the train.

Then I saw a thirsty crow,
One different from my story book,
Scaling down a cable wire
Perched on the head of a tap
Doing ‘Comminecci’an acrobatics
To catch the water droplets
Dripping one by one.

I can never come over the guilt
Of not possessing a camera by me that day.

Decades passed.
That was Vizianagaram bus station.
I got into an empty bus
And settled into a window-seat.
Surveying the surroundings
My looks fell on a little girl
Could be hardly four
Running after a one-plus hyperactive brother.
Catching him, and imitating her mother,
She censured him endearingly
Putting the index to her nose.
And by the next wink,
When he waltzed to the other end
Deftly caught him, embraced
And sitting him on her waist
While the uneasy boy was wailing loud,
She took him around the shops
Labouring to balancing him
And herself,
Telling him in her own little childly jargon
Things that pacified him. A la mother!

Looking at that little girl
Her endearments to her kin
I would have traded my faith
For a camera if somebody had offered.