Old Dharwad, where
Cement hasn't smothered
The roads yet.
Your face gleaming with
Rusty shops and hints
Of raw literature that
Runs in the streets.
We sit in a forgotten
Restaurant to have
Haap-Cha and Girmit,
And you appreciate it
Using the only cuss word
I've taught you.
You ask the meaning again,
It's just a superlative I say-
That's too much cultural
Exchange for a day.
Your Punjabi soaked in
Kannada, our story
Like a redundant name
Of a Hindustani song-
We walk from Railway station
To my college, like
Postman carrying a letter,
From 1950s to the present.