Reminiscing-A Hot Noon in Malabar

I remember reading the poem "A Hot Noon in Malabar" by Kamala Das when I was in school.

The way my English teacher explained it left an indelible impression on me. 

Kamala Das has written this beautiful poem on longing and home with so much feeling that it is hard not to feel nostalgia at the end. The poem starts and end on an emotional note when the poet is yearning and reminiscing her home in Malabar. 

Very subtly, she uses examples to compare her past and current life. Kamala Das evokes her childhood through this poem in the best way so much so that in the end when she says - To be far away is torture, is leaves me moist eyed.

Here is the full poem :-)

This is a noon for beggars with whining
Voices, a noon for men who come from hills
With parrots in a cage and fortune cards,
All stained with time, for brown kurava girls
With old eyes, who read palms in light singsong
Voices, for bangle-sellers who spread
On the cool black floor those red and green and blue
Bangles, all covered with the dust of the roads,
For all of them, whose feet, devouring rough
Miles, grow cracks on the heels, so that when they
Clambered up our porch, the noise was grating,
Strange…. This is a noon for strangers who part
The window-drapes and peer in, their hot eyes
Brimming with the sun, not seeing a thing in
Shadowy rooms and turn away and look
So yearningly at the brick-ledged well. This
Is a noon for strangers with mistrust in
Their eyes, dark, silent ones, who rarely speak
At all, so that when they speak, their voices
Run wild, like jungle-voices. Yes this is
A noon for wild men , wild thoughts, wild love. To
Be here, far away, is torture. Wild feet
Stirring up the dust, this hot noon, at my
Home in Malabar, and I so far away….