Uphill walk

Dr Phiroze Hansotia (see "Giving back,” Zoroastrians Abroad, Parsiana, June 2002) is a sensitive poet in addition to being a neurologist of international fame. He left India for the USA in 1963. He has come back to India many times over the years, sometimes with his American wife and children, sometimes alone. His poem, "The walk to the hill,” (published below) refers to the Poona Doongerwadi:

The road to the hill/With the Doongerwadi on the top,/Begins near our house/In Poona./It’s a rutted gravel lane/That leads to a busy road,/With potholes./I cross the road to a field/Of rocks, dried weeds, and/Garbage strewn about in clumps/Or flying free like paper birds./I watch for dog droppings/As I wind my way up/A narrow lane to where/The sea of shacks begin./The shanty dwellers wash/And cook and go about life,/As if they lived in open/Doll’s houses./I peek but walk past/To the busy intersection/Where no one stops./Across the road/New apartments stand/Already gray and unwashed/Prematurely aged by careless use./Row upon row, like tired/Miners in a shaft,/They stand facing the sea of shacks./Three gaunt gray buildings,/Rise to the foot of the hill,/Unfinished but growing/Like cancer eating space,/A deadly rash on open fields./I climb the hill/Past tired weeds/Stray dogs lying in hollows,/Up to the crumbling walls,/Of the Towers of Silence!/There are no vultures left./There are no people here./No signs of life, no joy,/No beauty. Just crumbling/Walls and silence./I walked around it/Watching the sun set./Just crumbling walls and silence./Then slowly walked back in the dark.

DILNAVAZ BHAGWAGAR

Nagpur