Trillions Apart

I weep when I hear John Lennon sing,
And I wept when George Harrison died.
I took out dad’s old tapes and listened to GH play Here Comes the Sun alone
And I cried.
I walked across Abbey Road.

I weep when I hear my mother’s old house in Gole Market has been demolished years ago.
I weep when my grandfather tells me of his days in Kalpathy, at Annamalai, in Cuttack, in Srinagar and in Sudan.

I wept when I read the stories my grandmother wrote in Tamil, in English
and were published after she died;
Stories about ourselves.

I jump for joy when I realise I live in the place that gave birth to Golgappa, Puchka, Panipuri and Batasha.
And laugh when I realise further that they are all the same thing
and delicious all.

I walked through the pines that rise on one side and fall on the other side of the road
in Ranikhet in the Kumaon hills.

I picked up pebbles from the bottom of Kempty Falls in Mussoorie
And sand from underneath my feet at Kanyakumari.

I have between the pages of my books
Maple from Toronto and Silver Oak from Lansdowne in Uttaranchal.

I walked barefoot on Eleko Beach;
that rests, on one side, on Lagos
and on the other, on the Atlantic.

I touched the Eiffel Tower at the foot because I could not afford to take the lift to the top.
I always put a coin in the guitar-case of a busker.

I fell asleep in Hyde Park,
The bright sun on my face
and the boys playing football - or is it soccer? -
teams of Shirts and No-Shirts.

Whenever I drive through Rajpath I crane my neck out of the auto-rickshaw
to see Parliament House on one side and IndiaGate on the other.
I get goosepimples whenever I hear the National Anthem
of India
of Nigeria.

Is Delhi - where I study - my home?
Or is Lucknow - where I live -?
Is Lagos - where I grew up - my hometown
Or is it Hyderabad - where I was born?

Am I an Indian?
A Palakkad Iyer?
Am I a traveller
Or just lost?

I belong everywhere
And so I belong nowhere.

Who am I?
Or can I never hope to answer that
while I sing
in Tamil, in English, in Hindi, in Spanish, in French, in Arabic, in Assamese, in Gujarati, in Bengali, in Italian and in every language singable.

I search for languages unknown
That everyone will understand
But no one can claim

And I search.