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| Brian Mendonca |
- Brian Mendonca
Invited to share a poem today, I had decided on 'Dharakhoh'. This is a poem I had written on my travels across India.
We were stranded on the Andhra Pradesh Express at Dharakhoh because the tracks ahead of us were washed out on account of incessant rain. In those petrifying circumstances people still had the spirit to banter and philosophize about the predicament they were in.
We were in MP, in the heart of India. I told the audience that I chose this poem because I saw a gigantic Peepal tree this morning. It is nature that knits us together as a nation. There was also a Peepal tree in Delhi below where I stayed in Sheikh Sarai. As I described the early morning in Delhi it is the Peepal tree which opens my third collection of self-published poems Jasmine City: Poems from Delhi. (Goa, 2023)
The other reason I wanted to read the poem was because it had been raining in the morning. A yellow alert has been announced keeping I-day organizers on pins.
Written in 1998 - my most prolific year of writing - the poem seemed like it was written yesterday. It still brought to me the freedom I savoured when I crisscrossed India hoping to come out with a second volume of poems. The poem was included in my self-published A Peace of India: Poems in Transit (New Delhi, 2011).
I stepped off the makeshift stage after reading 'Dharakhoh' but was called back to read 'Last Bus to Vasco' (1997). The poem features in The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City published by Penguin this year.
As I made my way to my seat I heard the compere thanking me for my 'iconic' poem. It opened my debut collection of self-published poems titled Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa (New Delhi, 2006).
A life of poems
journeys across India
Right here
right now
is where I belong.
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