Panipat

My aunts sit in the courtyard,

Gossiping, shelling peas,

While around them parrots

Cackle in the neem trees.

I sit with my flute near the place

Where the well was covered up

To make a septic tank

I glide from stop to stop

Following the scale of Lalit

Though it is afternoon;

It’s mournful meditative

Mood moves into a tune

Leading me God knows where —

Into a universe

Beyond — beyond Panipat!

Well, I could have done worse

Than break my studies and come

Back home from Inglistan.

Punjab, pandits, panir

Panipat and paan,

Family, music, faces,

Food, land, everything

Drew me back, yet now

To hear the koyal sing

Brings notes of other birds,

The nightingale, the wren,

The blackbird; and my heart’s

Barometer turns down.

I think of beeches, elms,

And stare at the neem tree.

My cousin slices a mango

And offers it to me.

I choose the slice with the seed

And learn from the sweet taste,

Well-known and alien,

I must be home at last.

—Vikram Seth, ‘The Collected Poems’ Penguin Books