Haiku and haibun by Raamesh Gowri Raghavan, India
Amygdala hijack
narrow road
the unvoiced call
of the deep north
Allusions to Bashō apart, it’s really the broad, multi-laned. pothole-free roads of the deep south that call to me. For they take me to the red sands of the theris, the banana orchards on the side road leading to my ‘ancestral’ village, the little granite kundrams with their little granite temples, the winking elephant at the Tirunellaiappar complex, the smell of hot filter coffee and paruppu vadais at the roadside stalls, mixed with the sounds of the speeding, honking TNSTC buses, and the gentle ripples of the Tamraparni, as she turns golden in the light of the setting sun… and I live these tiny moments over and over again as the trucks rumble by my Mumbai (well, Thane) house, turning them into core memories that will go with me to my pyre.
dawn chorus
the clink clink clink
of coffee vessels
blackout
the stars light up
one by one
between loose tea
and garam masala
the shop’s mandir
yellow gulmohar
on the cars and the road
and the rubbish heap
on the old dust
of the tyre-less Fiat
red gulmohar
petrichor
only the wash water
of the cars
Cafe Haiku 