Poetic journey through the Indian city streets

Amritsar, Chandigarh part of huge volume on verses worth revisiting

- Nirupama Dutt

Do you have memories of the busy buzz and unending traffic of the lanes and bylanes of Amritsar, the twin city to Lahore, until the borders parted them in the divide of the cursed 1947? The former was called the business city while the latter the cultural capital of the once united Punjab. Well, if you have not known then read the poems; it's home-grown poet Manmohan Singh, which features in the delightful and amazing 'Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian city' edited by a young scholar of Mumbai at Oxford University, Bilal Moin. Thus go lines from the poem:

"After long years I am passing through its narrow lanes Dhab Khatikan, Chhai Khooni Chaunk, Bazaar Baansan, Loon Mandi, I want to hear the rickshaw pullers and tongawalas say: 'Take care Khalsa ji'... 'Watch our Sahib!'... 'Hold on, Bhai ji', 'Let me pass Lala ji'... 'Move away my friend.' As they weave their way through flocks of sheep, donkeys, piles of sugarcane sticks, pedallers, carts without hitting, hurting or trampling on anything or anyone."