All in a hot and dusty day

All in a hot and dusty day

So, starting with goats,

two kids in the nursery, branches strewn on slatted floor

a pair of pigs, a nasty noise, loud squealing at the  trough,

(yesterday’s rice and curry waste will surely flavour pork!)

Pretty brown cows, chew chewing,

cheep cheep chicks, jostling for corn.

Then alas for four, saddle-sore, the sweat and wobble/ weave

to Kavanur, right there where Ambedkhar stands arm raised

a hero for the poor, outcast,

to meet the elderly, sixteen women, just one man

sat in a circle smiles ready (they’re spirited this crew!)

Christmas gift of saris, (one dhoti), Elamma’s storybook tale

(god help you in this culture when the family’s unkind)

then on to the next

(pause for a moment , a funeral’s ahead, fire crackers flowers and drums)

where more elders await, two likely lads grown old

but bursting to sing,  with drumming and dance;

requesting a motor so their water will flow.

Meanwhile of course our puncture is fixed

(no sir, no, there will not be any problem)

a pause down the road to watch jaggery made

simple skills of manufacture

mending, planting, growing

practical people all

help ever at hand.

Home for an hour of horizontal, beneath the whirring fan

Just before the fall of dusk and gathering of crows.

Off again in the comfort of car

to farmers in a club, each with a cow

big-eyed beauties, Jersey-cross

will stretch the family’s means

a life beyond  subsistence.

Finally it’s teenage lads, Abdul Kallam Boys’ Club

enthused of course by sport

cricket, kabbadi, volley ball

but we’ll try to sell them school

hang in there for a better life

India’s greatest hope

(as for my dad in Scotland a century ago

education’s magic key)

And so to bed, exhausted

pictures turning in my head

kaleidoscope

of women bent over paddy fields

steam on a sugar vat

drums for a funeral

bright smiles and vanacum!

a turquoise roller on a wire

goats and chicks and soft brown cows

four of us on cycles, toiling, midday sun

hot day, long day, busy,

good day done.

January 17th 2016, RUHSA, for Pam with love