rangOli neigbours

rangOli neigbours

Two neighbouring houses
with a common courtyard
and a mango tree in between

Two friendly neighbours
and two neighbouring rangOlis
decorating their housefronts

The cuckoo on the tree observed
how dissimilar they were!

One rangOli was traditional
with dots and lines in white
and with border reliefs in red

The other was more modern
filled with all sorts of colours
and no dots or lines could be seen

Under a canopy of clouds
and the sounds of wind
the cuckoo began to hear voices --
the voices of the rangOlis!

I am more beautiful than you are --
more colourful, more attractive,
more poetic and more vivacious
You,
you just look plain and simple
dull and prosaic

You may be right
but beauty is in the beholder's eye
beauty is in the creator's mind
beauty is in that divine heart

Suddenly
the winds began to whip up
and the clouds became darker
and the sky began to light up
and claps of thunder could be heard

The first seasonal rains arrived
to cool the hot inferno
that the parched land became
A little rivulet started to flow
carrying with it
the plain and the simple as well as
the colourful and the attractive
rangOlis that dissoved and united
into a patternless puddle

The cuckoo shivered in the branches
and the sky poured on relentlessly

J K Mohana Rao