Leaves From A Discarded Diary Poem by Ananta Madhavan

April 1976. Stanley. Repulse Bay, Hong Kong



At the new supermarket, the parking lot is full,
But there is paid parking opposite. A path leads to
The beach below and the changing rooms. I see
Two big trees on either side. One has dark green leaves
Topped by tender green ones of spring. The other tree,
Many branched, is utterly bare.

A tin shack covered with posters and ads, some peeled off;
They have left patches of grey, mottled.
A waist-high pillar blocks cars; it has freshly painted stripes
Of yellow and green.

Beyond, a wooden superstructure atop a building;
A carpenter bends down to saw off a strut.
He wears a denim cloth hat and white woollen gloves.
Along the rampart wall a man in a brown suit walks
With his small child. A mother is pushing a pram with a bald baby,
In a red outfit, legs outstretched, jowl spilling onto shoulders.
A woman wheels her cargo of purchases in a wire-cart
To the boot of her car. It is a dull day, a grey sea,
A day for sweaters and cardigans. Few loungers
At the ice-cream and coke bar.

Bauhinias are blooming over the bare trees,
Pink, mauve and new, on old sticks, tender soft,
Like a young woman on an old man's arm.
There's a big tree, with sprawling branches, leafless,
Impounded by the cement pedestal, hung with
Strings of lights, none aglow.

Bamboo clumps: one a spray of tall poles,
Like a marine fungus, long antennae,
Gently swaying from a narrow base,
More yellow than green. Silk cotton trees.

The new apartment blocks at Repulse Bay:
The graph-paper scaffolding not yet removed,
High on the shaven slope of the hill, they look
Mighty and threatening from road level. Tier
Upon tier of car parks; how will those cars
Go every morning to the city and return
At the cocktail hour by that winding road
Where every bend is a stunning prospect of the sea?
These are eye-scrapers perched on the eminence
Like sculptures by a race of moronic giants.

A hamburger joint, something international.
Tall iron gates enclose Chinese mansions.

Island Road, Deep Water Bay. A hoarding
With a picture of a skier showing her back,
Which offended her headmaster, who wrote
To the evening paper, (did he prefer a frontal?) .
The nine-hole golf course, floodlit at dusk,
The Yacht Club and the Temple house.
Another bend, islands, crawly waves, sheer fall,
Rock edge, speedboats tailed by wakes.
Cone hill, scarred with Oceanium works,
Pylons are also beautiful; Country Club,
Post-box, litter box, garbage outside a gate,
An old quilted mattress offered for any taker.

The Peak. Lugard Road, six foot wide;
Peeping views of the harbor through bushes,
Trees are sleeved in creepers, leaf sequins,
Lovely parasites; pink tipped leaves,
Shading to green stems, pale and tender fresh.
Dead vegetation, bamboo, network of dry brown
On the foundation of a house; roots on the ground,
Gnarled; branches, nodes, exploring tendril, like
Practised Chinese calligraphy, tradition emboldened.

The valley gorge holds concrete blocks like pencils,
Shanty roofs, grey zinc; small boats, launches, tugs
With wakes like comet tails, white and vanishing.
The air is crisp, with a faint scent of Queen of the Night.
Tunnels of shade, initials on mossy rock, as if rocks will last.

Yesterday was Ching Ming. Clothes of many hues and textures,
Knitted woollens, velvet, plaid, check designs, sheets and blankets,
Some ladies there, Slim of waist, narrow-hipped. Some babies
With soft, straight hair on heads that seem warm from recent birth.
Picnic spot, ice-licking tongues.

My discarded Diary renews
Moments that come alive to me again.


- - - - - - -
(I was the Indian envoy to
Hong Kong in Dec.1973-Feb.1977)