Thisilum Neela Poppiyum

 

1. While on a train going from Liverpool to Manchester, I began to feel that somewhere in the past I had been there in the grasslands running past the train and had lived in the house with the glass windows. While walking under the autumn trees in Clifton, I felt I had gained a new childhood with many colours and sweet smell.

2. Edinburgh is a big rock: a rock with caves and tunnels and buildings. Trains come out of these tunnels. People retreat to the caves or to the houses on top of them. We have to walk along narrow alleys and climb spiral steps to reach the houses. The wind howls like a fox and knocks on the doors and windows in the closes and wynds.

3. In Vilnius, the streets near the hotel where we stayed lay bare and were still sleeping when I returned after a stroll. The tress stood like guards on the side of the streets like the trees in Richard Arlington’s poem ‘The Poplar’. In this poem he had asked the trees on the pavement,” Why are you standing here?” There were flowers and old buildings in the vicinity. There was even a small statue of a boy on top of one the buildings.

4. After staying in Bhutan for some days and coming back to India, we would feel how great is our country. In spite of the fact that Bhutan is very peaceful, we would feel India is so different that even the crowded atmosphere is bearable.