Many years ago, when I left Calcutta,
I awoke each morning to the same rising
sun, breathing the same air under the same
blue skies of London.
And therein lay my consolation
when the tide of homesickness made its surge
that here was home.
Here was the sky and sun and air
though I might call it a strange place –
it was the same in those elements,
and I was convinced.
So much so, it became a mantra
I repeated, that I was really back home,
London was Calcutta.
What about the sights and sounds I missed,
whose place the unfamiliar clatter
of London filled? Ah, I but had to look
up, and hope returned.
The sun, sky and air the self-same canopy
lifted my heart to its elevation:
London was home to me.
Some might call it sour grapes, or plain auto-
suggestion; but as the years passed many
returned for a holiday to the old city,
strangely, not I.
Things would have changed irredeemably
under the same blue sky, I might equally
breathe London air.
