Two Poems by Runa Srivastava

I am A Pilgrim Without a Shrine

 

I squandered my days in indolent wander,

untroubled by the tyranny of tomorrow.

Elders admonished voices stern, insistent

yet what heed has youth,

when wild blood riots through the veins

in a delirious surge

 

I knew not the shape of my longing.

I struck the drums,

coaxed ragas from the sitar,

dabbled in colour,

drifted across geographies

a pilgrim without a shrine.

Purpose eluded me,

a mirage that would not settle.

 

And yet,one certainty blazed.

I was bound to the word.

 

To chronicle

the ache of journeys,

the murmurs of the mind,

the quiet rebellions within

this was my devotion.

 

It unsettled them.

It bore no ledger, no guarantee.

I was named reckless,

an upstart untethered

for I chose no sanctioned path,

no steady, sanctioned becoming.

 

Until I understood:

the pilgrim was the path,

and there was no shrine.

 

(c) Runa Srivastava 2026 

 

 

 

2.

 

The Quiet Luxury of Reading

 

Reading is my most faithful indulgence,

A pleasure neither loud nor rare;

For wherever language chooses to linger,

My wandering eyes are certain there.

 

I read the towering city billboards

With the same attentive grace

One might offer an ancient manuscript

Resting in a scholar’s place.

 

Within a bus by the window seat

I follow sentences as they glide,

Their fleeting syllables drifting past

Like small bright boats upon the tide.

 

Sometimes the wheels outrun the words,

And a line escapes my claim;

I twist around to rescue it still

A reader devoted to the game.

 

Pamphlets tossed by eager vendors,

Leaflets wandering through the day,

Are gathered gently by my gaze

Before the careless wind can stray.

 

And now I recline in tranquil leisure

Upon the soft diplomacy of my bed,

Where quiet hours and printed worlds

Conspire to crown the evening’s spread.

 

Tonight I wander through a realm

So delicately imagined and drawn

By Amitav Ghosh,

A mind where distant histories dawn.

 

His newest tale rests in my hands

Ghost-Eye, mysterious and wise;

And this dear copy holds a treasure

No common reader might surprise.

 

For gracing softly its opening page,

Like a whisper time cannot destroy,

Lives the elegant curve of his autograph

A small, immortal reader’s joy.