[A] Adrienne^[1], this was the limited landscape in which the proscribed years of my childhood took shape. And in it I am racing again a bicycle of iron through the puddles after August rains.

The years between - where and what I have been - I would like to forget, sandwiched between the twin aromas of dust, and corncobs on charcoal gnawed on under the last amaltas' bloom.

You ask me to tell you what this abused landscape means after these many years? I can only invoke inaccurate memory to answer instead of pointing to emerald rice fields, mango orchards, and scrub land all plowed under.

[B] We sit in the dark having this conversation; my early gift of aromatic candles are still a standing joke here. Shall I speak of the nights when the moon on the rooftop was as real as the mythical gift giver in that infant lullaby?

Listen. A raga - Kedar - on the radio. I never listened to this music as much when I was here. Yet now, how these half-heard notes unpack these stark hillocks, alleys with madcap saints buried at their corners, and lioness eyes of these ocher women when I walk in your cities.

You say I grow strange and distant at times when we are dozing in each others arms. Yet believe me when I say I need your hands on my spine as the buffaloes we saw need those white egrets. And hours with you are long green streaks of parrots flying home.

[1] An imaginary presence to whom many of my imaginary monologues are addressed