Those days still afresh,
like the driplets of rain
trickling down my wet strands
of hair after a long journey
into rain, to my destination
without an umbrella and a conveyance.

The memories of my unsettled days,
when… I walked along the streets,
ran along the city buses limping
at the door, struggling to find
a room, wedging my way through
the door crammed with passengers;
to attend interviews in unacquainted cities.

Yes! that man,
with a file of academic testimonals
in hand, weary of holding it,
shirt blotted with patches of sweat,
reminded me…
of my times at shabby hotels…
when… I saw men guffawing,
howling gayily in happy unconscious,
drowned in the cigarattee smoke.

There… some having hot dosas,
some idlies, some puries,
some upma with a delicious grind
of their jaws watering my mouth,
making my hands fumble at my pockets,
to count a few notes and coins those
mocked at me, “what will you pay
for the bus fare?”

When… none noticed my hungry looks,
watering mouth and deep wistful face;

When… I walked beside the trollies
of green-white striped displayed water
melons, the rows of their red,
fleshy traingular pieces pointing
upwards beside them;

When… people standing at the
brown and green coconut trollies,
sucking the coconut water thirstily
with straws and draining them with
a sizzling sound, sighing contentedly,
rubbing their sticky mouths with handkerchiefs.

When… I returned my village
with an empty stomach in the evening
to gobble down the hot food my
disheartened mother served me;
to eat the hot scoldings of
my father after that, and toss
on my cot sleeplesly, thinking
of the same following day.

when… in the evenings
I returned home exhausted
physically, mentally with only
one reply to my eager and aged parents,
“they said that they would inform later”
to their question,”what happened?”