In the flowering memory

of a mystic India

singing birds on peepal* trees

bring love’s melody to me.

Sunburnt women

swaying rhythmically

to the waving grass,

carry brimming earthen pots

to huddled huts.

The ripe shading banyan*

swings monkey ropes down

to naked children fingers,

it’s boughs ache pleasantly

with the centuries

of sacred secrets

moulded in its bark.

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* peepal tree also known as the Bo-tree (from the Sanskrit ‘Bodhi’ meaning “wisdom”)

* banyan tree refers specifically to the Indian banyan tree. Indian merchants would conduct

   their business under it.