" . . .from London".

"Lunn-dthunn?" they asked in surprise. Although the gun was lowered, they were not happy. This was too tall a tale for them. They opened my bag and pulled out my book of Derek Walcott poems, paper and pen and a couple of hundred rupees. They carefully put everything back and handed me the book.

"Read".

I opened the book to the poem that I had been reading obsessively since I had found it in a Karachi scrap paper market.

"So much life/So much life like the rain of this dark August", I began.

Their faces were slashed by grins. I obviously sounded like a foreigner. . . "