Going back home

Posted on by Reena Saxena 

 
 
 suffocated breaths
 on busy roads
 laden with history
 -manipulative voices
 steeped in the art of politics
 Honesty is an exception here….
  
 I sigh with relief
 as I hear
 -finally
 the time has come
 to go back home
 Delhi was never mine….
  
 soothing monsoon
 straightforwardness
 -a familiar tongue
 of Mumbai
 pulls me back
 to its familiar folds
dVerse Poetics: On Geography

20 thoughts on “Going back home”

  3.     I imagine that breaths would be suffocated like a stodgy art form in the belly of a Delhi’s whale of bureaucracy.
        Briefly I’ve read that at the end of Marine Drive there’s Chowpatty Beach, with Bhel Puri and Paav Bhaji at the end of the road near home.
        You have a very concise and elegant poem. I like the interesting rhyme “soothing monsoon” followed by “straightforwardness”. I’ve never heard Monsoon in that context. I’ve only associated disasters in the news with Monsoons. But a place of familiar tongue would be soothing. The Google blurb says that Mumbaikars have their own version of Hindi. I wonder which version the Google translator is using. It seems to make a lot of mistakes with all languages.

    मैंने राहत की सांस ली
    चोकिंग अफसरशाही की व्हेल

    दिल्ली मेरी नहीं है।
    कभी परमात्मा नहीं।

    मुंबई में घर है, जहां है
    मुझे एक सुखदायक मानसून मिलता है
    और प्यार मुझे वापस खींचता है
    चौपाटी बीच
    सड़क के अंत में
    स्वर्ग के लिए

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    1. Thanks for the translation, though the context is lost 🙂 One needs to experience the searing heat of May, to feel the relief of raindrops on the skin. Disasters are manmade – happen because the bottom of the ocean and drains are all blocked by plastic.

      Thank you very much, Doug!

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  7. A lovely capture of your feelings on going back home. No matter where life takes us, we all long for our “belonging place”. Beautifully written!

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  10. Your opening line, ‘suffocated breaths’, made me sit up, Reena, and then you presented me with a distinct contrast of places. I would also sigh with relief at the thought of a ‘soothing monsoon’ and ‘familiar folds’.

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