The Hill That Beckoned Poem by AtreyaSarma Uppaluri

There was that high hill yonder
At which I looked with wonder
Hills are a thrill to climb
So I started out to reach it

A wide and deep brook came in the way
And no bridge or barge in sight
So I walked back home
With a feeling of emptiness

The next morning when I got up
With renewed hope, I sojourned afresh
Wishing that the stream wouldn’t block
But lo! The stream still was there with greater force

This hill drill went on day by day
With a naughty nought
And an unravelling knot…

Then after years when I was back
Having grown up from childhood
And my studies far away elsewhere
The hill view was found eclipsed
By a close maze of high-rise buildings

Nostalgic enthusiasm walked into me
And on a dawn I began my hill-ward journey
I walked along the roads
With an eerie frisson
The stream grew still wider
However it was kinder
With a bridge over
As its waistband

Eureka!
First time cross I did
Successfully
And felt as if I’d won an Olympic medal

I continued on… and on…
Did I lose my way?
No hill in sight

At a landmark on my enquiry
This fell into my deafened ears:
“The hill was long ago razed to the ground
To make room for skyscrapers to abound”
Thus was how my nostalgic hill thrill
Came to be filled with a spiny chill.

[May 18,2009: : Hyderabad - 500 056]