When you travel back in time

They always teach you to look ahead and never to look back;

Life, they say, is about the future, the past is “in the sack”.

And yet it is the past that beckons, with memories sweet and bitter;

The first few friends, the childhood games, the parties, and the glitter.

There is always that wish, to go back there, to reverse the flow of time –

To visit those places where memories hang, forever sweet and sublime.

Did just that after forty years, made a trip to the place of my birth –

The quaint little town, where my childhood was blessed, with fun, frolic and mirth.

The house that I called home, was just the same, beside the Mohua tree,

The yard- trees were old; the people were new, and surprised to meet me.

The garden gate still scraped the ground, and the trees stood dark, like my childhood fears,

The grape-vine that my Father had planted, was still around, after fifty years !!

One school of mine had grown immense, with new classrooms and a hall,

The second one was just the same, with the broken gate and all.

As kids we rode bikes in that town, to places both near and far –

This time the distances were that much smaller because I was in a car.

All the houses of all my friends were exactly in their place,

It is just that after all these years, of those friends, I found no trace.

And then as I travelled those roads again, one thing was clear to me –

The childhood pictures got a fresh coat of paint, but, alas! Only memories will they be.

***

The house & the Mohua tree