Sale

Sale, sale, sale

In the sale, was Wordsworth
and the violet Lucy in my scrapbook,
In the sale, were women in saree and kohl
sketched in my little notebook

In the sale, were the plastic toys
now dead, old grandpa bought
In the sale, were the comics
very unwillingly, my young uncle gave

In the sale, were the snap shots
of my tom boyish cropped hair and loose pants
In the sale, were the stones and marbles
collected from the kitchen garden in the backyard

In the sale, were the sea shells
I had earned in the last Shivratri gamble
In the sale, was a set of playing cards
two siblings marked with colors for cheating

In the sale, were the little frocks
that I sew for my pretty doll
In the sale, were the peacock feathers with some sugar
lying in the books to multiply next winter

In the sale, were all these heartaches
under the debris of a destroyed home.
In the sale, were stories of a lifetime
under the rubble of a burnt shelter.

All our memories of a lost dwelling,
my defeated father finally sold.


PS: The last time when I went to this ache called 'home', I tried hard to dig all my assets from the wreck with little sticks. For the new dwellers, it was such a spectacle and for the non-existent one, it was such an agonizing disappointment - my sticks were not strong enough to retrieve anything that we have lost!