Talking About Small Things

They never talked about the world.
Poverty and famine, death or destruction,
It never crossed their mind.
They never talked about fallen monarchs,
Slums or empires, queens and kings. They never wanted it.
They stuck to small things.

To their world of a river. Ants and ant bites.
About a little dying spider and of night.
They talked about smell and taste.
The last of the river in the hollow of a navel.
They stuck to small things.
To a small world.

I came to their realm once, while wandering in search of boundaries.
I saw the mangosteen tree, where the boundaries dissolved for them.
I rested under that tree, looking at the river. It was placid.
The world of small things.
As I travelled back to my world of monarchs, death, queens and slums,
I wished I too could be one of them, to talk of small things.

( The side effects of a journey.
A journey to the setting of the novel God of Small Things, Aymanam Village)