Paper boat

 

As a child

with the soft cadence

of pitter patter, 

my senses slowly 

filled with the clean

petrichor of the rain-bathed

happy terracotta tiles

which after months 

of baked agony

find a succour in 

the cool waters that 

so generously fell 

from the heavenly azure. 

The house smelled of 

cardamom, ginger and

cinnamon infused milky tea

that the grownups liked

to sip as they sat idly 

Knitting, poring over magazines and 

solving cryptic clues of the 

Sunday crosswords. 

My brother and I 

having filled our bellies 

with gram flour and 

spinach fritters and 

having licked off all 

traces of ketchup,

raced to float 

our little origami boat

that carried our dreams 

on the tiny rivulets

that flowed unabashed 

unstopped by the dry

prickly grass of our lawns. 

Now, I sit impatient 

as my car snail-paces

amidst a sea of traffic 

on a pot-holed 

tar-coal road, 

cursing the rains 

whose murky waters worsened the already 

nerve-racking odyssey 

I undertake each day

across my polluted city.

-Neha Bansal