Himalayas Poem by Vera Sidhwa

I trekked up the ice sheets of the blinding white Himalayas,
And looked way, way precipitously down,
To the borderless red river valley,
I accidentally found.

This unexpected happening showed me,
This was the Dehra Dun Valley,
Of my childhood home so bucolic,
The bungalow I had left an eon ago.

But too soon after that thirty years back,
I had to turn American, left Dehra Dun in the black,
Of the night.

My airplane flew over oceans and seas,
Over Kuwait, Tehran and the Statue of Liberty.
Then my red heart turned white, while my soul cried.

And I that seven year old girl,
From that sublime and storied Himalayan land,
Couldn't put the East and West into one palm of her hand.
Leaving Dehra Dun at last broke me.

But the 2010 mountain trekking down, still further trekking down,
Leaving my trekking team, this became a hypnotic dream.

I finally stood in front of my house of thirty years past,
I turned it's door knob without permission.
Entering the house, I saw it's emptiness.

Was it waiting for thirty years for me to settle in?
I looked out the opened front door,
And the Himalayas looked down at me,
With a seven year old's school bus awaiting me.
I turned back into that girl of past eternity.

In this bungalow, I couldn't dream of anything more.

For I had finally returned home,
An American turned back Indian again,
My Indian heart turned bouncy again.
I am so happy, so happy again.


The bleachy mountains outside my door,
With the school bus waiting for this seven year old,
The Himalayas mountain range panoramic around me,
For my eyes to see and see and see.

Living in the Dehra Dun Valley,
Of thirty years past,
I moved back. Same now as it was then.

And YES, we CAN go home again.