Back from Hampi

I am finding myself wanting more and more to look at creative ways of self expression and one of them has been poetry. Encouraged by a friend to do more of it, here's what emerged after a three day lovely break @ Hampi with family & friends.

Stories from Hampi

If only these rocks could speak

What stories would they choose to tell?

Of the many events they bore silent witness to
Events that even history has dispelled

Would they choose to talk of brothers

Vali and Sughriva locked in a fight for life
Or of the devoted Laxmana following Rama
As he crossed these lands in search of his wife

Or perhaps the tale would be of sisters

Who for insulting these very lands,
Were cursed to become the Akka – Tangi Betta
Frozen in eternal rest, they now stand!

Maybe the folklore of the chieftains Hukka and Bukka

Is what the rocks might want to share
Who made this very land their kingdom
On sighting the hound being chased by the hare.

Or maybe history would take precedence over myths

Stories of Krishnadevaraya, the King
His bravery, his religious tolerance , love for poetry
Songs in his praise the rocks would sing!

Would they, then,  swell up with pride

As they begin to share the many forms
Of prosperity that radiated in this kingdom
In its bazaars, its streets, its religious icons

And then would they start to mourn

The fall of this prosperous, mighty empire
Ruthlessly plundered by the Sultanate’s men
Then left to burn for months in the fire.

Ah! Those tales of religious intolerance,

Of greed, that these rocks could tell -
Even in today’s times, several centuries later
Those stories would still ring a bell

But the rocks know that history repeats

That man from his mistakes learns less and less
So these rocks withhold their stories, their wisdom
And continue to stand in mute witness.