I This is about the green miraculous trees, And old clocks on stone towers, And playgrounds full of light And dark blue uniforms. At eight I'm a Boy Scout and make a tent By stretching a bedsheet over parallel bars And a fire by burning rose bushes, I know half a dozen knots and drink Tea from enamel mugs. I wear khaki drill shorts, note down The number-plates of cars, Make a perfect about-turn for the first time. In September I collect my cousins' books And find out the dates of the six Mughals To secretly write the history of India. I see Napoleon crossing the Alps On a white horse. II My first watch is a fat and silver Omega Grandfather won in a race fifty-nine years ago; It never works and I've to Push its hands every few minutes To get a clearer picture of time. Somewhere I've kept my autograph book, The tincture of iodine in homeopathy bottles, Bright postcards he sent from Bad Ems, Germany. At seven-thirty we are sent home From the Cosmopolitan Club, My father says, ‘No-bid,' My mother forgets her hand In a deck of cards. I sit reading on the railing till midnight, Above a worn sign That advertises a dentist. III I go to sleep after I hear him Snore like the school bell: I'm standing alone in a back alley And a face I can never recollect is removing The hubcaps from our dull brown Ford. The first words I mumble are the names of roads, Thornhill, Hastings, Lytton; We live in a small cottage, I grow up on a guava tree Wondering where the servants vanish After dinner, at the magic of the bearded tailor Who can change the shape of my ancestors. I bend down from the swaying bridge And pick up the river Which once tried to hide me: The dance of torn skin Is for much later.