Universe: Immigrant nostalgia

Young I was and still full of awe,

when the city of San Francisco I saw,

as I first arrived,

from my small town of Moga.

The city was lofty yet enticing,

a forest of glass and steel,

an Eden balanced precisely,

among dreamy hills and foggy seas.

Its streets formed tight geometries,

amidst aromas of chocolate and coffee,

its towers tall and graceful bridges,

stood sentinel to a man’s ingenuity.

My Moga was small and nondescript,

its streets narrow, noisy and dusty,

men jostled with stray dogs and cattle,

as motor horns honked incessantly.

Haphazard houses and narrow lanes,

scattered carelessly on a dusty plain,

no mighty towers nor majestic hues,

only endless mustard fields to view.

Small town sights and homely smells,

street hawkers and filmi music by day,

roasted peanuts with sesame seeds,

around the dried dung fires by night.

The chasm was vast indeed,

between town and the city,

yet I had spanned the distance,

driven by aspiration and need.

Not so young now — one day I stood,

looking out at the bay,

at a moment finely balanced,

between the night and day.

The sun hung low, a fiery orb,

as exuberantly its beams,

took the last joy rides,

upon the oceanic waves.

Impatient seemed the sun,

to retract its rowdy rays,

to whisk them across the globe,

to my once familiar place.

Suddenly from within,

arose a strange yearning,

as my gaze followed the golden rays,

right into the setting sun.

Riding on the shrinking beams,

went a message from a homesick heart,

to go tell a certain town in Punjab,

a heart still beats for it, on shores afar.

— Brar is a physician and author based in California. Excerpted from ‘An Empire Speaks: Kavya Narratives of India’s Cultural History’, with permission from Roli Books