Daljit Nagra

close your eyes and feel the smog clearas you descend shrinking into your boyhood shortsand slow as cruising wings to your townwhere a kola kube in a scoop for a paper bagat the sweet shop is on your tonguenow throw a hand to the right – watch a road bendfor the runways – throw a hand to the leftand your road straightens towards Uxbridge,the Venice of West London with its water...

On the outskirts of Mithila, a fabled city where they would soon rest having completed their sacrificial mission, the Sage took the boys past a neglected ashram. Rama, by the entrance, walked over a raised slab-stone. No sooner had he touched the stone         than dust was enlivened by his foot and before him the dust outlined itself into the image...

Hauling pails from the village well the girls fell a-talking of weddings to come. Said one: My uncle will bring me chum-chums. Said a second: My uncle will bear me gildedsatin saris. The third, Bopoluchi, the fairest and fastest of the lot: My uncle, with casketsof jewels and fruits on a luscious white horsewill ride us to his palace to win me a suitor!

Poor Bopoluchi, the orphan, knew no...

Ah the Raj! Our mother-incarnateVictoria Imperatrix rules the sceptredsphere as she oversees legions of maiden‘fishing fleets’ breaking the wavesfor the love of a ‘heaven-born’ Etonian!Smoke from cheroots, fêtes on lawns,dances by moonlight at Alice in Wonderland –no the viceroy – the viceroy’s ball!Lock, stock and bobbing along onpalanquins to...