Three hours barely away...

Just three hours to go, dear...
And we become history again...
Like every moments that pass so imperceptibly sometimes...
Incorrigibly...grains of sand...as we are in that hourglass-
Upturned...

Just a few minutes more and those days would be in past
And we would refer them as things happened once...
The way the flower bloomed to see the light that shone on it...
The way the dew drops fell on tender leaves to make them shiny that pleasant morning...
The way you on my lap heaved a sigh after a grilling Monday...that came and went...
The way once I kissed your earlobes to send all my steam into you!
The way you reciprocated by putting your right middle-finger on my trembling lips once, forbidding me not to disturb the silence that embraced us two at a forlorn evening!
The way we ran under the sun like truant school boys, sweaty, giggling...

Just a few minutes dear!
And all become so cruelly ancient!
But...
Math is a terrible argument...
Elevens precede twelves...
And twelves always follow the elevens!
Math is just a device, dear!

We stay true...like all those images of the days and moments gone-
That defy almanac;
Three hours barely away from two thousand and twelve...
You have the final say...
Not the year!

legs...

She was singing
The microphone touching her red lips...
The creamy satin top made things conspicuous as the light brought the shades purposefully
On her every stop...
And the light fell on her legs in particular...
Her legs...thonged...
They were also dancing to her tune...weren't they?

Her music flew
And the legs caught all the light...
Her legs...
Asking mine to go to the dance floor and join hers...

The legs...
They talked-
actually,
While I sat there,
And she sang...

at Trinca's...nine hearts meet, after nine lives...

After the poisonous liquid... singed our throats...
Our adda session reached its height,
At Trinca's-
Under the soft light of the chilly night,
As the year was closing in;

Old buddies we, gelled as if we had gone back to our old days...
Our days of playing naughty pranks...
And Sachs ...ordered more poison ...
Boom, as usual, was in his crankiest mood...
Zipping in and out with jokes of the monks!
Jokes and anecdotes flew
As 'Kolaveri d' set in ...
Coming  intermittent...like the lights that played on our faces...so bright...so bright...
Outside, the childish evening turned into voluptuous night...
Simmering all the way...dressed in white skinny attire...bare arms under the arclight...
So young and tempting-
Carrying the infection of love that crossed the frames of Time...
Horrid...cruel...Time...

 We placed arms on each other... and presented a story...
A story of old friends meeting again, adrift a strong current...
Like birds meet on the flight!
Old feathery friends meeting up in the sky...
Against the blue..

 At Trinca's, 'Kolaveri d'
Came to break our walls...
Time gave in to spontaneity...
Space became illusory...
Only bonhomie triumphed,scoring over all-
All ills and emptiness...
And pulls and pushes...

At Trinca's...
Nine hearts meet...
After nine lives!

the bicycle there! still not lost...

There lies the bicycle...
Against the rusty iron-gate...
I look at its handlebar, still not lost...
Its hand grips have the shine still...
The pedals...one of them broken...make screeching sound...
The tyres are flat...the spokes are brown and reddish...rusty...doubtless...
I touch its leather seat...small...but sturdy...could still carry my weight
As it used to carry my five year old body...
My aunt gave it to me once, on my  fifth birthday....

O how many adventures we took part in-me and my bicycle dear!
We rode through the mud and the slush...
Once while returning home, after heavy rains-
When the ponds brimmed over to the streets...
I fell into a pond with it...someone pulled me and my bicycle luckily...saving us from being choked under water...hyacinth filled....e.azurea...
We were retrieved...then by that kind soul;

The bicycle mine!
Still not lost...
Rusty might be...
But who doesn't be?

son and dad...

'Come'n dad!'
My kid cried...
Seeing the water of the lake so cool blue reflecting every bit of the clear sky above...
We two
Got out of our home
Early in the morn and drove almost fifteen kilometres to find a sopt to play and dance and do whatever we can...
For it was our day out...
The day out of the father and the son!
I looked at him...
My seven year old kid...carrying my chromosomes and hers as well...
Our offspring!

'Come'n dad!'
The kid cried again loud and clear...and the distant hills echoed his words....
I saw him unzipping his trousers and getting rid of his vest...
'Hey! let me join you!'
I shouted at him and ran towards him...
Leaving behind all worries...all cares...
The pier was long...wooden...mossy...
'Why fumble?'
My kid asked me, as I stood undecided...
'Come'n! let's take a jump!'
He said...with his eager tiny eyes bursting with vivacity...
I surely got infected by his instinctive gestures...his brown hair being brushed by the breeze...
His earnest eyes so bright...so happy...
His smile so candid and fresh...
Methought I could afford to be a kid for few hours...just like him...
Methought I should be like him...the kid...
And
The next moment both of us took the jump, together, holding on to each other...our four legs spread in the air...yelling all the way...
'Yaaaaaaa....hooooooooooooo!'
Our conjoined cry found an echo soon...

last night...

Last night when you left
Your shame
And near me came
To wrap me under your folds...
Believe me dear, I felt experiencing the Time Warp;

Last night when you chose
Your secrets to be shared
With me lying bared...
To take me to the Colorado...
Believe me, dear, I felt like a twig on your river;

Last night when you touched
My heart with your heart
Kissing me apart
To take me to Hell...
Believe me, dear, I was truly unveiled;

Last night when you gave
Me the deepest thought
Akin to some desperate, thirsty drought...
To make me a desert
Believe me, dear, I felt like a lone castaway;

Last night was the night
For you to meet me
Like a flower meets the bee...
To help the generation to prosper
With newer pollens and nectar..

Last night you made me
A river and a bee...
A flower and a desert
A volcano and a wizard...

Last night...
You did
Whatever you could
To make me wild
To make me soothed;

the gran'ol Murphy...

The grand old Murphy transistor radio...
Which my grand dad left to my care, before his demise...
With a smile on his freckled thin lips...
Still stays beside my bed...
I clean it everyday...
It stays mum, however...
As its round knobs had for long resigned to indolence permanent!
Its speakers don't hum...
It stays silent...like an old photo-frame with an old picture,sepia...
But it has stories of its own...

On lazy wintry afternoons...
It had the habit of presenting to our ears...the 'Musical bandbox'
And as those tunes and music alien lashed onto my shore of heart...
I surely felt so happy within!
I surely loved those songs of Clapton, Carpenters, ABBA...
I loved my grandad's Murphy to take me to the days of mystery stories...'Shonibarer barbela'...
The programme had a prelude...an opening tune...taken from Kraftwerck's 'Man-machine' album I guess...
I had goosebumps for sure...my eyes popped up...
As the voice on the radio took me to some eerie haunted house...
Then my mom would call me to lunch...
And I would carry the radio straight to the dining...
Listening all the way...biting my tiny nails,as if I was very much part of the story of the radio-play!

My granddad's Murphy...
It took me to different places...
It was a world for me...
For all of us...

So...
It still stays...
By my bed...
Telling me silent stories...
Seeped with nostalgia...

the operating system...

'What?'
I yelled almost
To my geeky friend...
Who just spelled the doom...
'Yes, buddy...' He said, placing his hands on my shoulders and looking into my sad eyes...
'Yes...reconcile to the hard fact that your cell phone's operating system got crashed!'
'My god! now what?'
I asked...my wetware(brain) reaching its second phase...

The first phase started a few minutes back when the screen of my cell phone got blank...and I was on a call then...
A very significant call...from her...
She had been talking about her life...with nothing else to do...
She had been confiding to me...her secrets...biological secrets...missing cycles...social secrets...
Missing friends...and I was also reaching a point of emotional stress...for her tone was so melancholic...
For she was pouring out her secrets of life...of  nocturnal frenzies...of boozing and smoking hideouts...
Of rains making wet the arid soil...

And the operating system got crashed!
'Damn you! OS!'
I yelled...
My geeky friend smiled...
Geeks have curious kind of intelligence...
They find easily the interruption-points of flow of thoughts in mind-circuit...
That what I thought...when, he, the geek, told me...
'Don't fret over these things buddy! life goes on...only the OS got crashed...and believe me...it saved your soul...you are saved from listening to someone's pains...you're saved...'
I smiled, said nothing...
Only the wetware within me was sending me signals to make a connection with her...
Somehow...

The third phase got started...
A phase of hopes and dreams...
A process of reinstallation...
Reformat...
Hopefully without bugs...
Without trojans...
Without malwares and spywares...
The OS got into the self repair mode...
Searching for the last good shape...
The last good condition...

to the sapling of struggle...

Look at you boy!
I'm amazed by your struggle...as you grow there
On that wall made of bricks...
You found such a small space...full of concrete...
Only that particular spot...a tiny chink in the armour of the wall-
You found it and spread your roots...
You had sent your roots drilling into the tiny space...
You must've been the most persistent one ever born...
You must've been the bravest and the most persevering one!
How come a plant choose to grow into a wall?
How come a small kid like you survive in such dry, rocky conditions?
Without food...water...and light...none can grow...actually...
But you have made it...by Jove!
You're really the sapling of the struggle of the ancient times...
When all beings had to fight all odds...
When there were no air-conditioners or room heating systems...
When fight was the name of the game, really...

Hey you! the sapling of the banyan!
You're the true warrior!

at the reunion...

The air still carried the scent of the flowers
Which bloomed at the garden...
The statue of the saint bearing the slant rays of the sun is still there right at the spot
Where it had been staying put...

All have remained the same-
The big playground of our youth...those goal posts...those cricket pitches...
The known smell of paranthas and the curd...at the second dining...(designated for the seniors)
The asphalt bypass leading to those rooms of our midnight guitar-plays and songs...lined by lemon trees...
The courtyard which had witnessed our shouts-shrill and playful...with those flower-pots with red borders...
The walls with paintings and photographs...
All...shone bright...as we arrived after a long time;

The commons with that blue surface still shines...
The air of the prayer hall is still dense and somber-incense sticks there still burn...
The whole campus bears so many things-
So many of them, are now part of our associated memory...
Those trees...those benches...
The gym, the canteen, the dorms...

Luckily all have remained the same...
And we, who have come from different parts of the world...
Still have the same gusto and the grit...the same naughty jokes...
Same cards to play on...
Only,we have grown a bit old...
Only our rooms like E19 and E22 have been occupied by others...
And we are no longer allowed to stay together there!

on this Christmas eve...

On this Christmas eve...
Like the last thirty years or so...
My wishes are just the same...

God...as you reside within us...
Make us even more strong to face all the hardships and pains...
And
No more fights for a single crumb of bread on the street...
And
No more tears on the eyes of the lost...
And
No more ugly greed for trivial papers with special marks and security threads...rectangular, mostly in dimensions...which we use for bartering...usually...
And
No more sights of women dressed purposefully, lining up dark alleys of the city...selling beauty given by you for mere survival!
And
No more smell of gunpowder and iron pellets hot spreading like the dark red saucy thing on the walls and ridden bodies...
And
No more modern equipments replacing the old ways and means of dehumanization...
And
No more acid rains and gray soot covering the face of our cities...

God!
My wishes have remained just the same...
God!
I just scribble...
And
Can't produce breads aplenty!

dream lights...

As the waiter put me at the corner of the hall...
Allowing me to sit there comfortably and scribble on my notepad...
Away from the friday crowd...young and bootlegged...
I sank into the soft red leather...
The chill outside was biting on people...
The warmth inside the hall was invigorating true!
The bar was being cleaned by a woman with white gloves on...
The chairs and the high stools simmering under the soft yellow lights looked beautiful bits of furniture...
'Tennesse Honey...one large...on rocks...two '
I placed my wish...
He, the waiter, in black dinner jacket nodded and smiled...
'I am leaving you here...with something to look at other than the young ladies!'
He whispered and switched on a lighting system installed right beside me...a few yards away...

The thing was simple...a turntable with a circular tube with holes on it standing upright...
And there were bulbs in the tube...
Being switched on, the turntable started to rotate...at an uniform speed...
It had its own RPM...
And the light of the bulbs came through the holes...at regular intervals...
Creating circular, moving spots on me...on the wooden floor, on the ceiling, on the bums of the ladies shaking legs...
The tube kept on moving...
So the lights...the circular spots...
And then came the music!
The ladies...four of them...were getting tempted by the light and the sound...
They shook their body...
I watched how the spots of yellow and red and green and blue played on them...on their faces, legs, bosom...
I noticed how the light came on me...on my eyes...creating temporary blindness...
I was bedazzled...
The hall was bedazzled as well...
And the Honey came in a glass accompanied by the bucket...
I dipped my ringfinger into the liquid which was reflecting the spots circular...till I stirred it...
Took two quick sips
And brought out my pen...
'You can check out anytime you like...but you can never leave...'
Don Henley and his friends screamed though the speakers...
Followed by the guitar duet by Felder and Walsh...
I felt I could never leave my dream...
The circular spots...on me and my notepad...

Usually...unusual!

Usually, he walks by her house every morning...
Sweated, usually, after the morning jog...
That he has been doing every year...
Barring, of course, the season of rains;

Usual practice of walking by her house with a small garden at the front...
Spreading a sweet sight like a known fragrance...
And watching her maid cleaning the portico with water and broom...
Made his morning...
Sometimes, more often than not, he would see her sitting on the cane chair at the portico...
Sipping from warm cup...
On winter mornings,
Usually he would find her covered by a shawl...
And sitting outside
Under the soft sun...
The sight of her sitting there...had...over the years become a habit...
Much like his morning jog round the park;

He never talked to her
She also never talked to him...
But...usually when he would pass by her house he would invariably cast a glance at her house...
And she would also look at him...looking up from her newspaper or coffee-cup...
That was a ritual of sorts...

However,
He caught a bad kind of a cough once...
And the doc prescribed him rest and no morning jog...
He woke up but stayed on bed...took medicine...and missed his morning jog...
And the beautiful garden and the portico and the woman sitting there with her cup of coffee...
He missed the ritual...
He tried to imagine her exact posture...staying on bed...
Would she be wearing today that cream colored gown?
Would she be dangling her white stockinged legs?
He thought and got up from bed
And walked down stairs straight to his front door...
He felt the cold breeze of the morn...
He felt the north wind playing with the leaves of the deodar tree nearby...
He felt...
Someone walking by his house...
He winked
And saw a white stockinged woman wearing a pair of white tracks walking briskly by his house...
He looked at the woman...
She also looked at him...
And at that precise moment the church bell rang!

the mayhem...

You arrive
Bringing the mayhem in toes
I guess!
Yes...
You arrive
And the mayhem arrives...
For I see how people go scurrying for shelters...
How people run helter-skelter...
Seeing you coming like a phantasm!
Sudden...
I go by plan a...
The original one...
Someone finds plan b...
Another goes to plan c...
Some travels fast from plan b to c in lightning speed!

You arrive...
And the mayhem arrives for sure!
You-the mayhem, arrive...
Turning things topsy turvy...
From Budapest to Tokyo!

time and tense...

Past perfect tense is a real teaser!

Who caught the drift first, for example...
You...caught it earlier? or me?
I caught it...you had caught it...
Then the infection of a tingling sensation on the left side of bosom...
Who caught it first?
You had caught that even before I got into it...
Or it might be the other way round...

Standing on the station for the last train...
You had boarded it before I boarded?
The whistle of the train must have been sounded a few minutes earlier-
Than our meeting the boarding norms...
We must have bought tickets even before that...
We must have come to the station even before that...

Once we all must have been kids!
Once...we were born into this beautiful earth!
Once the earth was also born!
Once the galaxy was not there!
God!
Past perfect tenses are really for those who are brainy...
Past perfect tenses are really confusing!

Any form of tense is a teaser...
For Time is a continuum...
And we are just little subjects!

a question...

Come'n after all these talks...
Let's get physical dear!
You would pounce on my nakedness like a true bitch
Tearing me apart...
And I would deliver the warm joy
Upon your unrequited soul...
Come'n!
Let's be animals after our civilized collisions...
Violent like the mob
On a shooting spree...
Come'n...be gutsy man!
Stand erect
And land your vengeance full on my empty belly and filled up soul...

Just a second...
Even before we get physical absurd
Let's get to our brains once more...
Last time...
One time more...
Let's determine...
Who's going get the priority?
Your chemistry?my physics? your Math? my biology?
Or
The souls of us?

Which journey we are to choose? really?
Body to soul?
Soul to body?
Soul to soul?
(considering we're human of the species...improper animals!)

just a snap...

It was a simple snap...
A blue blue ky...
And a vast expansive field ...a paddy field...
With layers of varying degree of greenness...
Different patches of green...light....dark...yellowish....
And in the midst stood she...happy...

The picture was simple...
He looked at the picture and....
And he was at once reminded of the day...
His semi-liquid memory  brought before him the day...so clear...
As if he became that vending machine with slots into which
You drop a coin and your picture comes out...after a brief, momentary flash of the bulb...

He felt the soft yielding ground beneath his rubber soles...
All the time he was dropping down a few fractions of a centimetre...as if sinking...
His feet was sinking into the ground...
The soft breeze from the north was blowing so as to put a few strands of her hair on her face...
And she was smiling...full of joy-
On being out into the open country...after a long pent-up life;

She was telling him:
'Come'n! how long should I wait like that?'
He perhaps said, keeping his eyes on the viewfinder:
'Only a few seconds more...just stand still dear...'
And then he had pressed that black oval shaped shiny shutter-button...
The momentary blueness of the sky...
the breeze blowing over her hair...
 The end of her white golden bordered saree flapping and
the paddy waving...
All got into the shot...
And the happiness too!

And that flight of a bird...in the sky...
And a farmer resembling a dot...at a long distance...
And their car waiting several hundred yards away...on the highway...
And the driver chewing pan masala and listening to a Hindi film song...'Munni badnam hui...'
Everything...
Everything came out of the snap...
Told and the untold stories...
Like a vending machine...ejecting right information on printed cards...after the coin drops into it...
Initiating a complex electro-mechanical process...

au revoir...

Gift me your shadow please...
Your sweet silhouette...that kisses me...on this beautiful morning of the blue...
Till you come again to meet me...here;
Au revoir!
Please...
Leave me with the perfect shadowy outlines of your legs and hands and curved body...
Upon me...giving me the comfort in the days of my wait...
Till you come again!


Till you come with your poems and prose...
Your bitter sweet lips...
Your high heeled pencil that made marks on the grounds of me...
Your tales of myths and memories...
Your notepad that recorded so far all of your winnings;

Fare thee well
Till we meet again...
au revoir...

want you...(tansliteration of Kabir Suman's song 'Tomake chai')

At first, I want you…

Secondly, I want you…

Thirdly, I want you…

I want you finally…

Want you at the silent dark!

Want you when the night wanes to dawn…

Want you at the puberty of the morn…

Want you in the indolent evening…

Want you there at the nor’wester’s rage!

Want you as the dark clouds of the monsoons cover the sky…

I want you dear -from one Shravana to another…

Want you beside me at the akaal-bodhon as well…

In the age-old roads of Kolkata…

New faces and old…

At home and away…in new apartments glitzy-

In the unnumbered tired faces of people lining up-

You usher in the unknown holiday mirth;

I want you when the city sleeps, tired…

Want you there at my momentary bliss…

Want you after a long walk…

Want you loving this life!

At the crossing of four streets...

At the city, in village…here and there…

At station, terminus, port or village market…

In alien drawing room, known interiors…

With pillows, mattresses, and old coverings…

In sweetest embrace of my favorite quilt, at the cold cold wintry night…

At the threshold, crossbars,floormats…

In happiness, angst, repentance and lovesickness…

In quarrels and compromises…

Want you there…dear…

Just want you!

Want you in my cup of tea…

Want you at right and left…

Want you in absence and presence…

Want you in unuttered words…

Want you in Shirshendu’s newest novel…

Or at my sudden urge to reread Abol-tabol…

Want you in unintelligible poems, thumri, khayals…

Or on slogan-covered walls…

Want you in the tunes of Salil Chowdhury

Or in the mellifluous depth of Chowrasia’s flute…

Or in the well forgotten melody of Hemangshu Dutta…

In those old ‘on request’ shows in radio…

Want you dear…want you…

Want you in requests and pleadings…

In pained soul’s cry…

Want you in demand-lists, desires…

In embarrassment, in fear…

Want you there in the squads for Human Rights…

And in pictures drawn the whole night for freedom and liberty…

In slim poems musical…

In prose embedded with intellectual energy and logic…

In never-ending wish of society without class distinctions…

In hunger for the change of the days!

In dreams of ending the days of conflicts and struggles and doubts!

In the calls of egalitarian world!

Want you in revolts and fights!

And in mission impossible…

In peace and war…

Quiet and disquiet…

Want you in this illusory life!

I want you dear…

At first…

Second…third…

Want you at the finale, grand!

the photographer...and the maiden...

The seat upon which he was sitting
In the bus, was not by the window...
And crowded as the tin box on wheels was...
Claustrophobia was setting in gradually upon him...
Added to the discomfort of being herded with a lot of people in a box...
That jumped up and down the potholed road which resembled a mountain terrain almost...
He was feeling insecure-
For his camera was there
In a leather bag on his lap and the filthy crowd was pressing on to it and him...
Darn!
He mumbled...
Irritation boiling up within...like a steam pressure cooker getting ready to send a strong whistle...
Steaming out...

Just then...
He noticed a part of a hand clinging onto the hand rails overhead...
In the midst of hands of dark pallor...
He noticed the hand...feminine...with different colored bangles on it...swinging in the jarring movement of the tin-box on wheels...
The hand...
Feminine...soft...with a few beads of sweat perhaps...glistening...
He slowly unpacked his camera...from the leather bag...
Opened the lens cover...
Held his breath...steady...
Put his legs tight against the back of the seat upfront...sort of fixing his posture...
And adjusted the focal length...
Bingo!
The soft, pale hand in the midst of dark ones...against the blue ceiling of the bus looked great on the display!
He pressed the button...putting the flash off...
He pressed again...
After the shoot...
He got busy with the display...scrutinising every bit of the shots...thinking of cropping one...
Meanwhile the owner of the hand, a teenaged girl with sharp exterior...
Came and sat beside him...
Looking at him...all the way...
Curious...surprised...perhaps-
For she had noticed, like other passengers how the man took pictures of the ceiling of the bus!
He didn't perceive all these...
He didn't notice that the seat by the window was getting vacant and someone moving in...
He was looking at the digital display of his camera;

fog...so dense like you!

You come like that dense fog...
That covers my city in wintry mornings...
And mystifies all elements of urbanized living...
Clouding the roads and the streets
Making things screened...veiled...vapoury...
And I try to get closer to you...
Ethereal you...
Feeling blinded by your curtain of whiteness;
I try to move...
And every inch I prosper
Leads me to uncertainty more...
And every inch I leave behind...
Seemed equally hazy...non existent!
Moving through you
So translucent...
I find myself embraced by the densest realization of being myopic-
That only makes one perplexed...
And yet I move on...
For foggy mornings
Bring in charms too!
Foggy you...
Helps me find winter's glory in my sultry, tropical conditions;

Fog...
You give me that terrible pining for a cup
Of warmth...
Fog...
You accentuate the feel of the chill
And make me the mystic traveler...
Fog...
You make many unnecessary things blurry...
And I love you...
So dense and soft...

love story of chefs...

If she served him with green salad as a prelude to love,
 He made chicken tandoori...red, hot, steamy...
Then...
He dished out pasta...light and slippery...to add zing to love...
She prepared the apple pie to make it sweet, delicious, like her supple lips;

If he created poached pear...to add to the sweetness of her lips,
To instigate him, she would  present the creamy soup with truffle...with three distinct colors-white, pale yellow and yellow...so sexy!
Thus they tasted each other...
From the appetizer through the entree till the dessert...

ageing...

discovering Eve...

Never thought I would find you there...
Sitting on the staircase of that lonely worn down temple in the midst of the thick dark forest-
That evening...sitting alone...leaving behind all your adornments...
Only the brightest moon fell on you
Like the arclight spotting you there...sitting nude...alone...
I stopped and only brushed aside the cobwebs of the last generation...
And the branches of the trees acting like clumsy brush stokes...
I just shoved them away and watched you...
As the moon touched your tresses of hair that fell over your innocent bosom like a garment almost...
I watched you sitting there...beauty incarnate!
My evening stroll went haywire at the loveliest sight...
I felt like the Adam...
Though found no serpent near...
I thought I would become the serpent myself and bite you being tempted by the wild ecstasy -
That made my face flushed...
And my body burning...within...touched by the fire of insatiable lust...
O Eve!
Why you sat there lonely?
O why you burnt my tapestry?
Discovering you, in the midst of the forest alien
Bereft of concealment...
Left me poorer of my wealth...
Left me so perished and ruined...forever!

son...

You are the greatest gift His Holiness has sent me...
You...
And your daily moves...

Your naughty smile...
And your grins...
And loud shrieks...
And pillow fights!
And fiddling with the computer...
And paintings on freshly coated walls...
Your excuses of not doing your spellings right...
Your scribbles on my softboard, pinned on my work schedule...
Your bicycle kicks that sent the ball shooting into the washing machine with the lid kept open!
Your roadrash...
Your queries about birds and bees...
Your jumps-high and long...
Your sitting by me in the car and unnecessary habit of pressing switches on the board...
Your sketches so unintelligible-reminding me of primitive drawings on the rocks!
Your music...pretending to be a rockstar...
Your musings of newly learnt rhymes...
Your running round the park with no good reason...
Your impromptu jigs...
Your act of gobbling up potato chips...
Your hiding behind the door when I call by your name...shouting myself hoarse...
Your sliding down the staircase rails...
Your ways of finding strange figures in clouds...
Your dozing off on my shoulder listening to bedtime stories...as the night descends...
Your sleeping face...
O! I just love them all!
Son...
You're God's greatest blessing...to me...
To all of us...

to you from me...

Dear...
I know all the hardships you face everyday day after day;
And believe me, I salute you...
And if you allow me
I'll kiss your feet dear...your feet...
For I know...how much you go through...
Every day...
Day after day...
You wake up at five...
And the first thing you do
Is to make coffee for your sleeping husband and infirm dad-in-law
Then you wake your son up...
Put clothes into the machine...
And if the maid is not turning up...
You start cleaning dishes, scrubbing them with that dish-cleaning greenish liquid...
Then you go to the garden...
Give your fond saplings water and food...
They also wait for you...
And that goldfish in the jar at your living?
Doesn't he also wait? for you?
And then you call your maid...
Requesting her not to stay away the next day...for next day you have urgent works to attend...
Your aunt is in hospital and given your husband's tight schedule...you'll have to visit her...taking that jar of health drink...
And you have to look at your son's school diary...what the class teacher has written over there in red ink? Gosh!
Your kid is not doing his crafts well!
Then your father-in-law asks you to put the geyser on...
And your husband can't find his favourite blue shirt at his closet...
You just run...
From one end of the house to another...
Still you go to your work...
On the way...a male passenger brushes against you awkwardly and you just feel so bad that you feel like slapping that f...k out!
But you don't! you just give him a cold stare...
And luckily he moves away...groping...
You reach office...
And arrange files...
And stands by your colleague who weeps inconsolably as she has lost her heart somewhere...someone played a spooky game with her...you feel bad...and you try to cheer her up...
Then you come home...
On the way you see the sky...getting dark slowly...and the moon on the wane...hidden behind that big tree...
You look out and smile...
You live...
Everyday...
Every moment...
Just like that...
A foot soldier...
Running round...following the clock that ticks away...
Dear...
I know everything...
Your tireless work
And your tired soul...

by default...we are gadgets!

You and Me...
Both of us are bestowed with some features by default...
Just like gadgets!

You are a transmitter
Emitting signals all the time;
I am a receptor,
Receiving your beeps all the time;

Your mind's screen is wide...showing reflections of every minute movement around you...
By default, you're a giant screen...just like the sky...almost...
My mind's screen is small digital display...it only shows a particular frame...the frame I'm in
By default, I'm a small display...objective, pin-pointed, sharp...just like the lightning that stays for a while...

You are essentially fluid...liquid...subatomic particles play themselves, though inconspicuous, in you...
I am essentially solid...fixed...molecules play in me straight...visible and too apparent;

Your circuit design is labyrinthine...having several junction-points to weigh in and weigh out options;
My circuitry is like a flow-chart...having junction-points to eliminate options by diodes and gates;

By God!
We're so much like gadgets(sic!)

the walk...

my city and me-perennial lovers...

Sometimes I feel
My city has grown its streets and pavements and parks
Within me!
So when I get a little time in hand to explore the cityscape-
I find myself exploring the sides of me...
I explore...
My city and my self...
The dead alleys of the north
Bring me to my desolate one...dead...silent...moribund...
While the south is all about the neon lights dazzling in my heart...so young, vibrant!
At the malls the hedonistic monster wakes up...within me...as 'I shop till I drop!'
Then I come onto the footpaths...thronged by the homeless me!
My city...and me...
Are like twins...
We grow together...
We grow old and young...
We become freaky
And somber...
We...
Walk side by side...
As lovers also in parks and Victoria grounds...
At the Nandan compound...at the Academy...
Me and she...
We are perennial lovers...

after every twelve years...

I was not startled...why should I?

Your looks carried nothing to be amazed of...
You are purple...
Hundreds of your sisters are purple too...
You make Nilgiri purple...
Hundreds of your sisters make hills and plains colorful too!

But then,
As I stood before you, and touched your softness
That smoothed my turbulent soul...
You nodded gently in the air...
As if thrilled by my touch!
You nodded and like a whisperer of knowledge told me-
'I don't bloom every day dear...
I don't come everyday...'
I drooped to hear your whispers...
I drooped down to get your smell...
And You then, let the greatest secret out...
You kissed my freckled lips and told me...
'I come only after every twelve years...'
I was dumbed by your declaration...
Then you revealed another thing...
You told me...
'You have also come to me after a long time...last time when you touched me...
This millennium had then just set in...
And Y2K bugs were making you crazy...'
I stood there...
Looking at you...Kurinji
As you nodded again in the gentle breeze

That unfurled my soul's parchment...

At Crossroads...

smokes...

 The evening was bright as moonlit evenings can possibly be;
And I saw you smoking
Keeping the perspective of the orange city skyline
right at the back of your sensuous silhouette...

I keep watching
You and your smoky being...
So tranquil and fluid
Like a fleeting mirage
As seen through my blurred vision-so myopic!

I keep tabs on your moves
Your fag emitting white lucid joy
Triggering me to break into tempestuous melody...
Of love, illusions and gaiety...
Atop the sacrosanct monument
That rose to kiss the orange sky
Of my gray city
And its smoky space...

The evening
It smokes...
So you...
So the city sky...
So me!

shoot me!

Wish...
You would shoot me
With your majestic Baretta 92fs
And shoot me away
From this world so full of hungry sad faces
And sad sad eyes...
Shoot me if you may...
Away away... from this insomniac world-
Hazy maze filled world!
For this world is not for me...
(Not for you either!)
But as you carry the gun...
And fifteen lead pellets...
Just open the safety latch...
And shoot me away!

If you can't-
Make me your lead pellet then!
And propel me away...
Providing that terrible thrust by the spring and the combustion...
Shoot me!
Shoot me...the lead bullet...
Make me thy bullet...
Discharge me!
Make me fly...
Till I carry the thrust at my back...
Till the gravity pulls me down!

Shoot me!
Send me away
Till my mass and gravitational decceleration
Conspire to effect my Fall!

At College street, after a long time gap....

Every street has its own pulse...
Every street...
Anywhere...
Has its own beauty...
Walking down one of my favourite streets of my city-
And that too after a long time,
Is a kind of revisiting my past...

The bookshops in makeshift stalls with books of various designs and colors on display in the open,
Under the mellow sun of the afternoon,
At College street, have their own smell...
The air was smelling books and coffee and young students...
So vibrant!
O  How I looked at them!
Students in baggy jeans...in torn jackets...
Young ladies
In body fitting tees...
With big...really big ear-rings that swung like pendulum...
Their ways of smoking and chatting and calling each other by names...

Then the chaiwallahs
Pouring invigorating tea in earthen cups...
And grilling breads on stoves...
I looked and looked
And thought I revisited my days of gaining adulthood just!
I saw my self in one...a young man with a bag full of books on his shoulder strapped...
And
My love in another woman with specs on...sipping coffee under a tree with a paperback in her hand...


Walking down College street...
After so many years,
Is like going back to my past...
my days without cares...and...
Full of love and warmth!
So unadulterated!

The phone call...and the sighs...

'Hey! How are you?'
She called me one late evening...
At first I couldn't recognize the voice
The phone was in my pocket and my handsfree device never show the number...
So...
I parked myself by a less boisterous place...killed the engine...
And brought the cell out...
Raising my back a bit...
'Hey! you! How are you?'
I asked, feeling elated to hear her voice after a long time...
'Fine...'
She said....'What about you? on the road I guess...'
'Yeah...thinking of returning home...'
I said;
'O...Sorry...I might call you later on...You're driving, I suppose...'
'Was driving...not now...I am now stagnant by a lonely park...'
'Which park?'
She asked...
'Millennium Park... '
I replied, casually...
'Milliennium park? Is that you said?'
She asked;
'Yes...'
I replied, a bit loud;
There was an awkward pause at the other end...
'Hello...'
I thought the line hung up...
'Yes...'
She said...stretching the word as if she was going to doze off;
'What's up? feeling sleepy suddenly?'
I asked, curious;
'No...actually the name of the park...Millennium...it reminded me of a wet afternoon...I went there with someone...we were then living in the same city...we were then meeting all the time...we went to so many places...together...me and he...we went to the park...we had taken peanuts in paper bags...we chewed and munched on them so happily...someone held the umbrella over my head for hours to save me from the drizzle, though I actually wanted to be drenched...someone ...'
She stopped saying all these, in fits and starts, ruminating...
I fell silent...
I looked out of the window-
To see the park in the evening;
It was closed...
I looked at its main gate...
The white and blue gate had remained the same...
The benches were still there...
I noticed a peanut seller going home with his empty basket...
The other end of the phone was silent also...
Only I could hear heaving of a sigh...
Me sighed too...

suicide...

"Now that you are contemplating committing suicide,
I will not deter you, sure!
Only...
I'll ask you to read a few lines from a book
Before you commit to your ways...
Read David Emile Durkheim...

His book 'Suicide'
Read it...
Before committing the gravest Sin
At least know the Sin...
Know Suicide...
And then...choose to die...
Knowing whether you're altruistic or egoistic...
Towards death..."

My city of seasons

Sometimes she turns up like a deep thirst...
At the end of a long walk down the scorching asphalt
-A big banyan tree spreading wings
At the turn by the gas station, in an otherwise
Arid, dry, desert of concrete!

Sometimes she arrives
Mirthful, across the slice of wintry sky, blue,
As seen caught between the twin towers by the Maidan...
In which horses run and children play foolish games...
As their parents loll over the grass, lazy...

Sometimes she becomes my Venetian maid, true!
Rowing a gondola and singing songs from tearjerkers of yesteryear...
Across the rivulets running through the streets of Shravana....

Sometimes she comes like an enchantress almost
With a riot of colors all over her smooth body...
Over her every part...stealing a rainbow!

My city...
O how she envelopes me in her beauteous folds!
Every single season
Like a season...

the traveler...

He has traveled...
Long distance...
So long a distance of space
That he has forgotten what was the exact appearance of his front door...
And what flowers bloomed in his garden last spring...
He has drifted away...
For long...
So long that his memory of time has got scrambled
And he has not seen how time has changed his home town...
Its people...
His wife and son...
And even his pet dog...

rendezvous

Seeing her coming towards him,
He jumped with joy...
God! please don't make me look messy...
He, prayed silently, looking upward at the slice of evening sky as seen through the trees and the towering buildings of the city...
She waved her hand...
'Did she wave? didn't she?'
He thought as he felt like walking towards her...
To shorten the distance of her walk...
But he was transfixed...couldn't move an inch from his position-
That is, the second lamp-post of the sprawling campus, beside the pool and the cafeteria...

'How long have you been waiting?'
She asked the first thing, after she came near;
White salwar, silver flat shoes, a silver bracelet and a white dupatta going round her neck...
'Not for long...'
He muttered, trying to garner up courage...a bravado...male bravado...
She smiled again...
'Could have waited three or four days here...or anywhere in the world...'
He thought within...but said nothing...
'So? what's up?'
She asked, looking at the pool and the people sitting on white chairs...
'Thought to meet you...after-all,going away soon...'
He said...
'Oh...what we are going to do then? now? movies?'
She asked, without expression, as if she was prepared for anything and everything...
'No...I mean...as you wish...'
He said, coughing twice...clearing his voice;
'O! really?'
She said, looking surprised a bit this time...
He stood looking at her eyes...
'Yes...if ...you've any wish...'
He mumbled...almost shying ...
'Okay! let's sit by the pool...'
She said and started walking towards the chair...
'That's it?'
He said...following her...
They sat...face-to-face...
'Allow me to get for you something...'
He said, helping her to sit, pulling the chair for her-
And as about the attendant...
'No! I am not hungry...'
She said...
'Take a juice then...or coffee...'
He insisted...
'No...I'm sorry...I'm here only to have a look at you...'
She said, looking at him, turning her head a bit...
'God!'
He almost shouted had not something broke into his vocal pipe...
'Got married?'
She asked, as he stood there, transfixed again, by the table...
He nodded in affirmation;
'You?'
He asked;
'Yes...'
She nodded;
'Sit...'
She said;
He sat...feeling uneasy now, ruing the fact why had he called her...after so many years...
'So...got kids?'
She asked, bringing out her cell phone, looking at its screen with furrowed brows;
'Hmm...one...seven years...'
He said, softly, looking down at the table napkins white, kept in triangles...
'Got his picture with you?'
She asked, a bit excited, for the first time in the evening, looking at him, from the screen of her cell that glowed;
'Yeah...'
He fumbled out his cell and selected one out of the several photos in its memory micro card...
She almost snatched the phone from him and
She looked at the screen...
He watched a slight transformation of her face from silent, pained state to joyous as if she was smiling...
'seems like he is taking after you...'
She observed;
'Only hope he would not grow up to be someone like you...leaving behind people, forever...like a traitor...'
She stated, mincing almost and handing over the phone, she suddenly stood up;
'You're not going away?so soon?'
He asked, standing up...
Alarmed, surprised, hurt;
'Got to go...bye bye...happy journey across the sea...'
She uttered and took her purse up from the table and started walking briskly towards the road...
He followed her...
But she didn't look back...
Walked hurriedly to the sidewalk and hailed a taxi;
The yellow filthy looking cab came, she got in and the junk took up speed...
Leaving a trail of smoke on his face...

your name...

Every afternoon, at the break,
I am reminded of you dear...by simple things...
A tinkling sound of someone's bangles...
Or by a sweet honey dew potion...
Or by the sight of a yellow dupatta aflutter...
And I go to you...
Every moment that is mine...
Every day that is ours!

Your name dear...
I find in posters and banners, billboards across the city sky...
You looking at me and smiling...
Calling me to join you all the time...

You...
Come to me in my morning dreams...
And also in late evening...
And at night lit by the moon...
Like the angel from the sky...
Carrying...
Sweetness of the most glorious kind;

You come
Following your name...
Like the Great Inundation...
To drown me and my civilisation..
Under your waves...so strong and wild!

the missing golden peacock...

Her golden peacock ear-stud
He discovered...
Inadvertently...while vacuuming the floor;
It went through the nozzle straight into the dust paper bag
And while emptying the paper bag into the bin...
He heard it drop
A metal hitting the bottom of the bin-
Sending a signal perhaps!
Curious he, stooped and picked the thing out...full of dirt...
He felt the thing in his palm...
Placed it under the tap...
And it shone...like a gem glittering and wiping out the dark...
He smiled...
O how she had searched for the thing!
Silly girl...
How reddened her face was not finding her favourite ear-stud...a golden peacock!
O how she wailed...as if she had lost her heart somewhere...
He tried to console her...giving her promises of newer ones...
But the peacock!
'You don't understand! they were paired! One gone! how could the other live?'
She had wailed profusely...
Almost a dirge!

Now having the peacock in his hand...
He thought to go back to her...
'Hey! I found the one...where's the other?'
He thought
He would ask her...
And he was afraid...
That she would not find the other...then...

A Requiem...

I fear not Lord
Your last pull of string-
Calling the final shots,
For A Requiem I sing!

I fear not Lord
Your last roll of dice
That will end the game
And Death will suffice!

I fear not Lord
As the day comes to an end
For You give us Strife...
And Peace, also you send!

waltz...with her!

'God! having a waltz with her...leading her!'
He thought for a moment when the night queen came to him
And asked for a dance...
He memorized his steps...he knew them all good!
But...
Having a waltz with her...so lustrously present in the white gown...and diamonds...
He was perspiring;

He stood up...
Looked at his shiny shoes...
Tried to see his face on the leather...
The music had started meanwhile...
She was waiting with her arms to be taken and placed...method!

He hit the floor...
Tensed no doubt...but the music...
'Get to the music...'
She whispered...
He heard her...and got a glimpse of people watching him and her...
'You can do it...just place your hands on me...'
She whispered to his ear...
He got the tingle...
He got the hint...
And placed his hand on her...
Softly...
He felt his moist nervous palms slipping on her...
But she was staring at him...
Her blue eyes...
Red lips...
Flowing music...
He took the lead,( nudged by her, of course!)
But that was the only nudge he needed...that evening!

The rest followed, automatically...
He knew his steps...
He memorised them...
He put his left foot forward quickly followed by his right one going horizontal...
Then he dragged her halfway to take her by his stride...
He moved from his second position
As soon as he heard the change of music...which became faster...
He pushed himself back...his right foot going back...
Followed it by his left one...
On the floor now he could see the exact drawing made by their footsteps!
He just kept his mind on the invisible design...
That looked like a complex curve with a lot of 'u'es and turns...
The music got slower...
He also followed it...
The lady was smiling...in his arms...he noticed after a while...
'Goddamn! you're a real dancer!'
She gushed...leaning on his shoulder as he thought of making the design on the floor a bit tricky...
'Ready for more?'
He gushed...
Animated...
She winked her eyes...
He swapped her position with his...
In a wink of an eye...
And heard at once a roar of applause...
And her flushed pinkish face said it all...
She was unexpectedly pleased...
She was leaving her body to his whims...
And he took her to his stride...
With no hands slipping... the sweaty palms became non existent!

she, her song and...

Following the song, I ran upstairs...
And did not find her in the rooms!
Her song...however showed me the direction...
I found at the balcony...standing...
She was wearing a pair of white Egyptian kind of 'harem pants'...
And a puffy top...
Looking like a goddess straight from museum paintings...
Oblivious of me, of course...

'Veshe jai adorer nouka...tomader ghum bhange kolkatay...'
(The fond boat floats away...as you wake up at  kolkata...)
She sang, standing at the balcony, facing the rising sun...
Below the streets were getting hurly burly...
People were running to works...
'But why is she singing a song of city flooded by water in winter?'
I thought...
And got closer, tiptoeing...
'Was her cheek not shining a bit too much?'
I thought and got sideways to look at her face...

At once, I knew the reason...
I knew how city filled by water comes into one's mind even in dry winter...
Tears were rolling down her cheeks...

nicotine!

Hey you!
Nicotine!
You're so tricky...boy!
You enter me through my mouth and go straight to my lungs and brain...
Had heart been your only destination I would have taken you easy!
Boy! I've given hearts to many and too many took mine!
But you trickster Nicotine!
You go to my brain as well...my principal workstation...
And create such a stimulation there that... my god!
Every time you are not there, my workstation commands me to usher you in...by serving  you proper welcome- the grandest and the most curious ones!
So...
I go hunting for you, damn nicotine...
At awkward hours...at the dead of the night...
At the loneliest sunsets...
At the merriest evenings...
At parties and after parties...
Before going to the loo...
And even...
Even after stomaching those lovely kebabs that my wife serves me...
And also after not having kebabs!

making love...

Making love to you dear...
Is like reaching heavens no doubt...
Your orgasmic gushes made me so animal so many times...
By Aphrodite!

You shoved me in and out...
And made me a toy so many times...
Entering the rain forest of different kind!

By Aphrodite!
Making love to you is like
Reaching the point of stranger revelations...
Revelations of being animal, instinctive, brainless, dumb!

Making love...
Is discovering you as well...
Finding your most candid version...before me...real and bodily beautiful...
A version of the holiest state...naked...like truth...
A version of being divine...shameless, sinless, pure...

Making love to you
Is like placing my heart upon yours...
My every bit of you into you...kind of amalgamation...temporary nevertheless!

superannuation...

He always remained the hardest nut to crack...
Despite being hurled with expletives, naughty jokes, banter and ridicules
Related to his dresses, miserliness, appearance, etc;
He had remained mostly cool...
However, on two or three occasions he erupted, like a dormant volcano suddenly coming live and perilous...
But they were so infrequent that his marksmen, who threw all those verbal missiles forgot them
Or dismissed them as something very banal...
And they continued making fun of him...

Finally, the day came...
He thought he would retaliate though lately, in the most appropriate fashion...
Showing them his true grit...

After the pleasantries were distributed...duly...
His chance came...
He rose up...
His marksmen were a bit nervous and were biting nails...
'What would the crack narrate on his last day at the office?'
They thought...
But he just stood up,
With folded hands...
Seeking forgiveness for nothing...

He wept...trying to control his wrecked heart...
And said nothing...
The superannuation brought him humility
Humility and sense of being human also descended on his marksmen, quite logically...

a billet doux...for you... in troubled times...

Though the sky is not sunny...
And the air smells of gunpowder arid...
Still thinking of writing a love song to you...
A love song from me to you dear...

I see the streets being filled by anxious people,
Markets being closed down every day,
Gunshots sending fear of death every moment...
Still thinking of sending a love letter to you dear...
A letter that will carry my throbbing heart...
And ten million kisses...
And my bare soul upon your feet!

Yes I know the sky is gray
And the seas are ashy...
And the curfew is imposed on me, on you, and on every one of us...
But still...
Writing a love letter...a billet doux for you... has its own charms...
As I can see you on the paper...
Talking to me...smiling...
Right on the sweet, short note of love...

The times are rough dear...
People are lying unfed...
And banks are closing down...
But I think...
Writing you a billet doux...takes away all these mundane stuff...
Takes away all the burdens off me...
And off you as well, I guess!

To my mom...

You know dear...
I wrote umpteen poems and two novels almost on you...
Still...
December comes with you hovering over me like a sting of deep felt pathos...
Still
December fourth comes every year since two thousand and three...
Bearing bleakest memories of my long and short life!
O' mom!
Every year since...
I had received that phone call from the hospital...early morn!

'Please hurry! She is terribly unwell...'
I, being sleepy, couldn't have caught the voice properly, trailing all the way...
I had returned only few hours back...to my sleepless home...
And rode out again...through the vacant, sleepy, foggy street...
I rode as if there was no tomorrow...jumping every traffic signal red...
Breaking every traffic rule...afraid of being chased by dogs of the street and sergeants waiting like hounds behind those white street corner kiosks!

I ran through all...the speed breakers...the tramps...the milkmen...the newspaper boys...the swallows picking grains left by a speedying goods carrier ahead...
I jumped all to see you there-
At your last and final refuge...bed no 303...
With pipes and monitors and needles all over you...
The doc was there too...
He embraced me even before I looked at your closed eyes...fast closed...as if sleeping!
God!
Such a  bleak and blank moment...I have never witnessed...
Such bleak and blank day!
I stood there, stupefied...by your bed side, mom...
By your white, clean bed...
While you took the journey...transcendental!

( in memory of my mother, Sefali Ghosh Dastidar Dutta, who passed away on 4th Dec, 2003)

Living next door to Brishti...

He was sitting on the porch
On one indolent spring evening...
Tomorrow would be the 'dol jatra' and
He felt the air of the evening already carried the smell of abir...

Furthermore, a little distance away, from where he sat,
A few people had gathered under the canopy, near an old temple, singing bhajans...
He could hear them sing bhajans of love and devotion...
Simple and chaste hindi songs full of vigour...
That brought before him Lord Krishna's yearnings of love at the sight of his Radha;

'Hi!'
He heard someone calling from behind
And the familiar tone did not make him to be stirred by surprise...
'She must be Brishti...'
He thought and lethargically turned his head...

But the moment he saw her,
He was left speechless...
For, Brishti, his childhood buddy, his next door friend, had come dressed in an orange colored kurti
With curious shiny red borders and laces...and as he looked more carefully...
He found her looking resplendent by the light of the bulb hanging overhead...
He found her looking extraordinarily handsome...as if...
As if she was a flower which had bloomed that evening only!

'Hello! Brishti! you look so wonderful! going somewhere?'
He asked, impromptu,
As he looked at Brishti...
Her flowing hair,
Her lips aglow...
Her brightest smile...
And the small red bindi on her forehead...

'Yes! Came to ask you to give me a ride tonight...'
She said, almost quipped...
'Oh!'
He said...still looking at her...as if he was seeing her for the first time in his life!
'Hey! Why looking so strangely to me? Am I looking that much startling?'
She remarked casually and pulled him out of the chair...
'But...but Brishti...'
He mumbled,
'What?'
She turned her head and her flowing hair...(like those heroines of silver screen, you see...)
'I heard you're going out of the town next week?'
He asked...somewhat cautiously, as if he was going to put his feet and words into a very accident-prone slippery zone;

'Yes...I am going out of the town...and probably would never return...'
She said, looking at the people who were sitting under the canopy, near the old temple and singing bhajans of love, swinging their heads...
'So...what's the need?'
He asked...hurt;
'The need is more so...dear...to give you something before I go away...forever...'
Brishti quipped, smartly...

He thought
Even after living twenty four years next door to Brishti,
He knew nothing about her...
He never knew her!


(inspired by  'Living next door to Alice', by Smokie)