afternoon..

there have been long afternoons and i have roamed around

in the shrinking sunlight. where i lived was a place far away.

there were bunches of guava trees. old mango trees with

trunks very wide. scrapping off their bark was my favourite

game and also gathering yello leaves that had fallen off the

boughs onto the ground. the noon-shy soil, that would be

moistened by the dew all night.

of flowers i remember moonbeam. and of course hibiscus

that had branches entwined, so that snakes could live in

them, peacefully. i dug in small holes the in ground and put in

them the stems of the hibiscus buds that i plucked. and in the

morning i looked at them an wondered what made them

bloom into flowers so full.

moonbeam and hibiscus taught me the colors i know, white

an red, black came much later. there were jackfruit trees a

couple of decades old. and i remember being told, who had

planted which, and if a ghost lived under it. because late in

the evening when you are asked to run from one home to

another, you may come across a beautiful girl with her face

hidden behind a white veil, sitting under the jackfruit tree like

she was both praying and waiting. and you are supposed to

know that she is a ghost.

there were herds of monkeys that came hunting in the

afternoon. they were chased off the orchard. sometime in a

forced siesta you would hear a tree branch break and you

would know they have arrived. then i would tip-toe into the

courtyard before anyone wakes up to makes cups of milky

tea that were to be served in maroon cups with broken

edges, later in the afternoon. the mokeys who were chased

off the orchard would be quietly waiting on the roof. i

remember givin them brinjals and cucumber and the leaves

of cauliflower..and looking at them eat, and then slitherin

back on to the bed like i never got up..

such were my afternoons. but one day came a mighty storm

and wiped it all off my life. now it's like remembering things

that never happened/..