The Associations

Another day of work and mundane affairs,

Wasted in sorting issues

On this hot summer of dry winds

As I walk back home

I wonder,

I look around,

And ask myself,

Where is it coming from,

The pleasant fragrance,

That seemed so familiar, so distinct

Yet so distant

As my mind drifted

Oblivious of the heavy traffic

And noise honking everywhere.

Wasn’t it the year 1984

Of the month of May

When I, as lost as I am always,

Wandering in gay abandon

Hanging around with my chums,

Bunking classes,

Disgusted with conventional teaching

In search of meaning of life.

And you with your male friends

In that corridor of Maths block

Probably going to the Physics lab

Saw me and I saw you

And our eyes met for rather too long

Till they separated.

Oh! But now I can see,

The neural highway alive again,

In the corner,

The office peon crushing his teeth

Into soft Cantalope, the Indian muskmelon,

His face as lightened up as mine

As I remember, and smell

In my mind’s eye,

The air permeated with the rich fragrance

After you shifted your glance

And drifted away

For three decades.

© Ramakant Pande