The Towns Are Changing Fast Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

Four decades have gone past!
Being nostalgic, I visited the villages
of my bloodkin, around Sivakasi,
where I did my degree course.
I left one village as the pillion rider
on a moped to catch a bus two K.Ms off.
As the bus didn’t come, I got into a lorry
for the next six K.Ms. I got some space
to stick to the driver of a Share-auto
which was jam packed with ten humans
though permitted to carry five.
It was a bumpy ride before we
entered the outskirts of Sivakasi.

“Dear boy! Where is the tank-bund here,
where I roamed and read my books
in the cool breeze from the watery surface? ”
“ O, Grandpa! Buildings have sprouted up”,
the driver said carelessly.
“My God! There is a Shopping Mall
where there was a garden of flowery plants! ”
“You feel too much as the town was yours.
Catch hold of the steel- bar. If you slip and fall,
it will make the hell of my life”, he warned.
“ My Goodness! Once in this lane
there were hucksters of clothes,
astrologers with almanacs and horoscopes,
fortune- tellers with parakeets picking out cards
and tiffin -centres with Iddly Steamers! ”
“Goodbye Oldie! All the hawkers are in Malls
and Restaurants, Computer Centres and Temples.
You get down here to catch your bus.”He waved his hand.