Rocks of Rachakonda – Jhelum Chattaraj’s ode to rocks of Hyderabad on the occasion of
World Environment Day
Drink this rain-dark rum of air
column of breath column of air
‘Air,’ Agha Shahid Ali
I behold jewels — unpolished scriptures of time.
Rock-trail green rises beyond the rupture of time.
Lavender stained ‘kohinoors’ clean the city’s lungs.
Rachakonda saves air in a pitcher of time.
Old —- older than the Bahmanis — mean black birds
call the ‘cursed woman,’ the last disruptor of time.
There is beauty, detached and rare— when the sun
sinks into a blur of rocks — the mother of time.
Cyclopean masonry, gateways of strength,
monolith beams seize the architecture of time.
Lintels, pillars, reminders of Grecian blood —
‘all powers lead to the grave,’— cruel hunger of time.
Raw-boned Banyans narrate ‘patthar-dil-pareshan.’
Roots clutch ruins — obsessive stone hunters of time.
I see verdure, I see cold lavish breaking,
Bruised boulders — silence, blasted to powder of time.
Rock-town villas rise from remains of the gravel.
Shepherds lose grass to the ailing brother of time.
Hydraulic scorpions scoop the blue of the sky—
the Flood is coming —- a telling anger of time.
Earth’s future is desolation’s geography—-
perhaps, Jhelum is the only water of time.
