Poet’s Note: Writing poetry may be one of the finest creative acts, but you don’t do it the way you carve a statue or make a painting. As we can’t say what happens with the rain, we have no idea why words that are the building blocks of poems pour sometimes and stop at others. After having published three academic books and spending thirteen years at Delhi University as a Political Science lecturer, I never thought I would become a poet. Living in America for many years, one day, I found myself composing a poem in Hindi, a language I had never studied in school or college. At first, it was a drizzle or a sprinkle, but then very soon, it became a downpour, a thunderstorm, or a deluge. Words were falling into my lap, praying, take me, blend me, make something of me. This period lasted for at least four years. The result was ‘Ru b Ru,’ my first poetry collection in Hindi, released in 2012. Then for the reason that I am unaware of, I was hit by a drought. The epidemic broke the spell, a global tragedy that forced all of us to hide in our narrow shells. In the obscurity of those days, words returned, but they were not focused on gloom and doom. When I put them together, they delineated portraits of nature, sunshine and shadows, buoyant clouds, tree-lined pathways, and things that make our lives enjoyable. I am collecting these poems for my second poetry collection, which I plan to publish in the summer of 2023. The five poems you read here have been translated from the original Hindi for The Punch Magazine’s poetry issue.