Timesick

That library was more Elysian than most others I’ve known.
More than a decade ago, when time was slow
For me and the world in general. A beloved Madras summer

Vacation flavoured with cool neem trees and infernal heat
A dusty drive to the Adyar library was a regular treat.
The lanes seemed to be on vacation too, so intense was the silence

A silence sweeter than the water, if the cooler worked right
Thicker than leaves in the old courtyards around
A dried-up fountain. But the halls upstairs were clean and bright.

As my cousin swotted for her entrance tests, I pecked like a bird
At a banquet - at maps of Greece, moons of Jupiter and block diagrams of solar ponds
And devoured Dickens in deluxe editions with leather backs and obsolete fonts.

Peace blazed through the days like raw sunshine. It was a timezone
That I once would have loved to make my home.