The Musician and the Lyricist, of my soul,

Whence Thou think of plucking
A string of my heart, Love,
You turn me into your being,
And I become harp Thine,
Love beauteous mine,

You sing through me,
You give rise of a wave
You take me up in arms yours
And help me cross the Sea,

And i find myself asleep
In your sweet embrace
Done , encumbered, by thy grace,

I see the Beauty of yours
Making me a Beauty of my Soul,
I find Love yours,
Making me your eyes,
Your final shores,

I get attached to thy string
Whence by strumming
My string of Heart,
Thou Happiness of Beauty
To me always bring,
so unfailing!

Love Song for the River of Heart

If i perchance,
Find thou everywhere
Love mine,
By what name
Will Thou care
To call me?

O River mine,
Thou hath kept me
In such a way blessed
By Your awesome Kindness
That I get dyed by your silver,
By your gold the same,

In you dame, I lose my hurts
In you I come bathed, merged,
In you I see life taken away
So away from me, O my lovely river
Can't you still sit by my side,
And Love , just LOVE more , helpless me?

If guided by Thou, immortal Soul,
i find myself embowered, in your folds,
By what name, pray, Thou will care
To call me, my songs of Thy lyre?

A song of us, for us

As perched two of Us, We
Come love, we sing the morn's glee,

Now that we have settled onto Our souls
Filled to the brim our emptied love laden bowls,

Come, love, we send our music to those
Who have not yet woken to our morrows,

Come we send our love more and more
To make them wake up to our lovely lore,

We wake them up with our songs of Heart
Come Love, we tell upon them our jovial hurts,

Now that we have chosen to sit beside us,
And feel each other in our eyes opened thus,

Come, Heart, we drench the World with Love,
With which we've woven our beauteous cove.

Twilight , by the shore,

As the twilight came after the day long mirth
We sat by the shores of our hearts,
Me and my Love,
We sat by the ocean, waves, as they came to us,
One following another, they came to touch us
Our feet, our ankles,
And the spring's colors made appearance
On our souls, as we sat looking at the waves,
Coming to us,

As the twilight came filled with colors
Not far away from us,
The world moved by,

And we thought , being so caressed by colors on the waves,
The World had become suddenly too benign,

Or was it we were so drenched by Spring
That the World only for us kindness did bring?

Night to morn, loving U

As the birds are singing still
And as in me Your beats of heart
Can I so distinctly touch and feel,
As the rooster from my neighbour's farm
Can be heard calling us to wake up wholesome
As the roses and dahlias are blooming
And the new born's smile is singing
Turning our skies of Heart beautiful as ever
As the breeze blowing over the water
Making little ripples making me shiver

Our World has remained a Beauty I guess,
Like every night when we plant our morn's dress.

Come , onto Me, LoVe ,

And then whence we were
About to slip under our soft linen cover
With dreams of Thee in our eyes,
As spread like stars glittering in our skies
We saw Thou how came with feathers
Wiping all our hurts with ink Thine
That Thou hath taught us to keep
In our books with blood and wine seeped
And You told me our story of Love
Graded by your Peace, your motherly love,
You told me to go deep, and to get submerged
Where You had taught me to feel the Upsurge
Within our Hearts so conjoined
With threads of our Love, by you
So inexhaustibly by Truth of Divinity joined.

Prayer to mother of Creation

As Thou hath left me Colored such
By Your awesome paints, airfilled brush,
As Thou hath given me seeded a birth
In Womb Thine, where I sleep, your child, with mirth,
Keep me blessed by your kisses from Heart,
Keep me nourished by fluid Thine
Which carries nutrients from watery shine
Of the sun rising out of vast huge seas
Of the sun dipping draped by Your dreams unleashed

Keep me in your belly, Heart,
Keep me in Your Path so merged
That even if i tremble or tend to Fall
You catch midway by Your State, so Tall
And Love me more like a mother does
To Her son who has resided in her womb thus.

WIll i be Born, In Your Womb of Love

Love, Will i be Born
Again in Your Womb of Morn
Again and again
Till all your pains
You release onto me,
Sweet Heart of my Sea
Of Potent Love,
So full of Blood
From Your
Unborn Hope
Of strings, A Chord

Love, Will I come
To Your Peace Of hurts
And Supranormal Calm
I will, I will every time
You kiss, till your heart
Forget to me miss,

love, have I not made with You
Such, such an e~thereal Promise,

I will , will be
Your Prometheus,
Your seeking
Your refuge,
Your Ruth
Your me,

Love ,
Will I come back
Again and again
Never to make you
Lose , our repeated songs
So Offtrack!

Love,
I will , by Will be Thine,
And will bathe
Together WE
In the Un~forgettable
The Divine.

Love, Thou art wine,

LOVE, Thou Art Red
Red wine so
Succulent,
You drip
From Your
Chalice
For me,

And how
See,
How I carry
The scent
Of Wine

The Redness of Mighty Heart
Thine!

Love,
You are a glass
Of my Open
Open wide sky

A sky of twilight
Turning red
And orangy
Bright!

Where not have i found you?

Where not have I found thee?
From my waking and going
To our garden of birth,
From our rising to the ethereal rise,
From our evenings singing melodious
A tune of our selves being drenched to the core,
To our nights when we came swimming seven seas, ashore,

From our million births and few million more
Deaths that came to us with Love,
Where not have you found me, love?

Remember the battles we won and lost?
Remember our settling down like doves
On branches of our cherry Tree so filled with Love?

Love, where not i have found thee.

Even if i go ...return will i make

Even if I go,
Away, away from thy shore,
Love, return I do make
Only only for thy sake,
For in eyes Thine
Have not i found wine
That flows forever from the Ocean
Of our Love so, So divine?

Even if i go
Away, away from eyes Thine,
Love, I will always return to thee
For in you i have slept
Like that innocent sky and that sea
Which hath remained
Even before we embraced Us
Even before we each other doth see.

Match is, Life

Life,
Like
Love
Is
A Big Match
And you
Can
Only match it
With Thy Soul,

For
Sans Soul
You Canst never Match
With
The U n I

The Verse
That
Is

An inverse eight.

Dotted till ... We are here...

Love, can't you see,
Child mine,
How have I brought
Flowers from heaven
Only for Us
Two to make it even,
Can't you, You, see,
O the heart sweet of Me
How hath Thou made me travel
From a dot to Eternity?

Paradiso , not lost

And suddenly,
She started singing,
Much like those shots shown in Hindi films
Of yesteryears,
'O my adorable darling...'

He thought,
Was it evening?
Was it morning?

But his darling
Was not paying any heed
To his dumbfounded state,
She just pulled him
From his dream
And took him behind that tree,

That tree,
Apple tree,

And
They became
Adam
And
Eve,

They were like children then;

Paradise was not then lost.

Love, a sanctuary of Heart

Love,
In thy sanctuary of Heart
How many times hath Thou me born
Like a sweet, infinite morn,

I dazzle, I glimmer,
In thy Hopes i simmer,
And whence the buds bloom
I find there Thy omniscient room.

Don't blame me, Love,

Don't you blame me Love,
For the more i find You,
The more i become a dove,
And quieter be comes the eve,
The nights, the morns,
For in You i find my Peace

And that succulent tranquil heart
Sees nothing but you, my hurts,
That You hath put into me
With Your blessedness so care fully,

At my opened door you I see,
Standing there in your winged shape,
your brown hair around your nape,
So keenly telling upon me,
Our never ending love story.

Junoon

'Kyuin ki
Ishq ek junoon hain...'

(Because
LOVE is a Passion...)

She said,
Putting her hands
On his,
Her hands
Had the softness of a moon
And his the glow of a sun,

And they
Felt life
How passed through their pulses

They felt hearts of one
In the other,

And after that
They embraced their morn

Which they in their
Palms made to be born,

They felt the world
Singing
They felt
Grace kissing their heads,

They slept,
Floating like
Two angels
Painted on the sky.

I've got a home

I've got a home, I guess
Where you by your inner light trace
Your own very own, happiness,

I've built a home, true,
In your yellow, in your blue,
Where poems and prose gather like dew,

I've made a home, mate,
In your unhindered self, straight,
Where you keep dreams of awakening, late,

I've made a home, heart,
In your passages of pains and hurts,
Where you try to meet us, a few years of light apart.

Di-ode

Diode
Let's then we
Come to be,

You anode
Cathode me

And electricity

Would flow through us

To one direction only

To meet our
Almighty

Not picking, by frost bitten

One day , Love,
We will surely stand under the Tree
Which we had planted out of our magnanimity,

We would look at that fruits,
But would never pluck them,

In their stead we would live amazed
Spoilt by the frutification of our choice,

Apple picking we had not learnt,
For by Frost, we had dipped our fingers,

Our blood had got the bites of ice,
And we will surely live it through, thrice,

Standing right under the Tree, me a wit,
And Your kindness by rhyme unleashed.

A window, a dusk,

Looking out of the window
When I see the strings and stripes and ribbons
Of red, gold, blue, spread out on the canvas
Of dusk,

I think that's where Thou hath left me
To be sunk into thy kindness,

There I find my all rumblings
Gathered like floats of cottony clouds,

Don't know whether they have gone there
And fell as rains upon your roof,

But to me, they are part of my Love
For you.

Got all the time to sleep

I would be then
The sleeping child of you
For I got all the time to sleep now
That You hath awakened
In me,
And you,

Plant Love
Your kiss on my forehead
And let me keep empowered,

For there are more awakenings
For us to embrace

Before we sleep
Together

With love in our eyes.

Gratitude

LOVE
As You hath cared to set me free
In wings of Your transparent poesy,
Make me sing for You
My gratitude once more,
Once more let me sit
At Your pious Feet,

And make me find rhymes
There not iambic, not pentameter,
But something that is even beyond that,
Something that could turn me a flower
At your , Your feet forever lowered.

An ode to Butterfly

Like a butterfly,
Whence You come to take your seat
Upon my petals trembling in the
Candid evening's breeze,
I send through your colorful wings
Messages of uncompromising, potent
And powerful fire,
Knowing You would make the World
Fragrant,
Knowing you You become
The Soul of buds
Only to make them bloom
In every spring,
With no lust
In them
But only the Love
To beautify
The Uni-verse
Even more.

Morn

I will leave
More
life
And pains
More
Will I embrace
For that will unlock all my
Love,

Like the Sun rises,
Loving us,
Every day.

Whence we embraced the night of love

'There...'
She drew attention mine,
To the sky of the night,

'Isn't it beautiful?'
She asked me,.

I looked at her face,

Then the sky,

Then those glow worms
Which came
And sat upon
Our heads,

After that
We embraced
The night.

Come Love, to rest,

Come to me Love,
More with Your ethereal splendour
Blinding me to death,

Come Love
More with Your songs of Life,
Enlivening me to accept

Whatever takes place
At every moment of this
so mortal life,
With your eyes
Upon mine
At rest.

By Beauty thine,

If Thou art that courage
That hath risen deep into my heart
By Thine bless,
Keep that bless not momentous
Keep me still
So that i could find the Beauty
Of Peace put at rest
Onto my soul,
For ever

Like an ocean
Like a cliff

Like a birth
And a death.

When the evening closes in

As the evening closes in
With scent of marigold round my neck
I yield, I surrender, to my Love,
As she downs her feathers too
Upon my weary day,

Till I breathe, my last,
It would continue, I whisper,
As she looks at me, with her eyes
Her happiness often killing me thus
As my weary day comes to pass
And the evening closes in.

If you can, friend, stand by the shoulder

If you can, friend,
Stand by the shoulder
And smile at the beauty of Heaven,
That we try to create,
Through absence of violence,
Through peace,
And forgiveness,

Stand erect,
Stand as a human,

Forgetting your race, creed, religion,
Doctrines,

Stand by the shoulder
And not heave a sigh

Stand there just
Where we stand
You and i,

If not,
It would never be your fault,.
The fault would be mine.

Every time, loving life,

Every time I love this life,
This very transient one,
And if you ask me why?

I would just say,
Every time I find people dying,
every time I find death close at heels,
And the more I place my hands on a coffin
Or on the soil where friends and compatriots left their last roses
Beautifully engraved upon their hearts,smiling ,

There more i come back to live,
I come back to Love,
I come back to autumns, winters, and springs and rains,
I come back to make a beautiful world
For only in the face of Beauty, Truth resides
With all its happiness of Peace.

You and I ~ Love

Have I ever made you,
To rise to our morns?
Saying morrows come
And as come the dawns?

Have I ever told you
How You come to me
In pains of Love, the most,
With Your utmost glory?

Have i ever told you
In You i take the sky
As takes an atom
In the molecule of you n i?

A conversation with a Julius

Many years after his Death
I found a Julius,

He said
Republicans killed him,
But he asked me,
Democracy
Where are you actually?

I said
I have become light
I can't carry burdens,

He said

All right

The scent of gulal

Ronza had gone to attend the birthday party. It was a day of spring. Scent of gulal was there in the air.
Scent of nascent dreams that she had escaped from comes back to her with full throttle. She tries to escape. Like the way she tries to escape her own shadows that are created by the movement of the sun above her head. She knows the spring would be coming to her. She knows all the trees in front of their house would break into blossoms. She knows the birds will start singing .
'I am not a bard...I am just human...'
Ronza would try to console herself and by doing so she would try to limit her sky.
She would try not to face her dreams.
So, when spring will come, she will immerse herself more and more into works. She will keep herself busy.

The college has been kept close for some activities.
A conference is taking place there,on poetry.
Ronza having no interest in poetry, has decided to skip the session.

But this stupid season of spring and that stupid boy.
Tirtho...
Few years senior to her in the college when she was herself a student.
How many years had passed?
Some twelve years?

Tirtho...
The name itself evokes a series of slides in her eye's mind.
She finds him walking down the corridor towards the library.
She finds him taking notes in his scrapbook. She finds him sitting under a tree at the playground adjacent to the college main building.
She finds him asking SB about that aspect of Santiago's character required to be discussed which prompted him to imagine Marlin as a  friend, in that Hemingway novel, inspite  of both Santiago and Marlin being engaged to a rigorous battle for their own survival.

She finds him writing down for her those notes of missing lectures.

Tirtho...

She finds him everywhere in her wakefulness. Even after twelve years!
In her sleep, she finds him more.

Then,
She remembers Tirtho's face the day she went out to party with her friends of their class.
Tirtho...
He said nothing.
Not spent a single word out of his mammoth vocabulary.
He just asked Ronza the next day how did the party go.
Ronza probably showed extra excitement.
She probably wanted to incite a tinge of jealousy in Tirtho.
She flaunted her dresses.
Her attitude.
Her acquired possessions.

Tirtho said nothing.

He never had anything to say.
That made Ronza more obstinate.

After all, she belongs to the most aristocratic family of the town.
After all, the town moves by their family's wish.

Who is that Tirtho?

That she had thought.
Then.

But this spring.
This season should have been banned.
The birds should all be kept shut.
Ronza thought.

The birthday party got over by nine.
Ronza thought of jumping into the car.
The car was about to be started.

Just then,
She thought she saw him.
Tirtho...
Grown fatter.
But his walk had remained the same.
He got all the time to walk.

Ronza came out of the car.
Tirtho?
Tirtho looked at her.
Through his glasses he saw her and at once broke into a smile.
That infectious smile of his.
'You? Here? Thought you had moved to another city...'
Ronza said.
'Yes, came here to attend a workshop.'

'Work shop? What ? Where?'
'At that college nearby...something literary...'
Tirtho said.
Ronza smiled, though her throat went dry.
'Got to get back this evening only...it is really nice to find an old friend...'.saying this Tirtho shook Ronza's hand and started walking away.

Ronza looked at her hands.
She thought she found that scent of gulal there.
Right in her hands.

For Noirita

See Noirita,
Once again I have stopped by that field,
Our fields of love and forgiveness,
See the sky, Noirita,
It has turned the color you wanted it to be,
See,

How our Love had made our roots,
See
Noirita
Once again
I hath cared to stop by thee.

The Gandharaj tree, *

Surabhi upon going out, felt the drizzles on her face.
She remembered how once much like today, a morning, catching a cab, she felt drizzles like that upon her face.
The cabbie then told her,
'Khidki uthayiey madam...'
( pull the window up...)
Surabhi remembered how she asked then the cabbie to take her to that place where
the gandharaj tree had broken into white blossoms. She remembered the aroma of life then.
She remembered how her love once found a mother there.
She could see every bit of that tree,
The Gandharaj
With its white blossoms

And how then winter came down upon her, and how the gandharaj came and told her what life is all about.
What God is.
What Love is.

Surabhi remembered all that.

'Aap ek kam ki jiye...'(do one thing...)
Surabhi told the cabbie this time.

'Take me to that bridge near the port...'

'Ji...'
The cabbie replied.
The drizzle was coming through the window.
Surabhi pulled it half way.
She wanted the drizzle to numb her.

'That tree might not be there, but the land might be there...that land where the tree once stood...'
Surabhi was thinking.

(* The Gandharaj tree , was used as a motif, a symbol, in a novella written by me, my debut one, titled 'Pestilence', which was published in 2009)

The wheel

Ananya has slept the day, today.
A day for her sleep has arrived so much with peace that while she came home from work, she thought nothing could be more beautiful than a sleep.
And she slept.
After many years she slept encumbered into the songs of Love, that could make oleanders sanguine, that could make her a poem by herself.

And while sleeping, quite curious enough she could hear everything that were supposedly happening around her world.
Her wish to go to the hills to learn flute. Her wish to find Artemis somewhere as the protector of the Ecology. Her wish to find her daughter learning the music  of August, whence freedom came without being tampered with malice. Her wish to find her husband taking a day off and playing that song on their old Italian piano- that particular song which once moved even the mountains to weep in silence, after they hath realised how the song permeated their rocks and grew little algae right into their hearts.

Ananya had the day of a sleep.
A sleep only a day of spring could probably provide.
A sleep that told upon her how answers to prayers never go unfulfilled if the queries were not limited by the three spatial and one non spatial dimensions.
A sleep that could make her love that krishnachura on bloom just beside her window.

When she finally woke, she saw her daughter had spread those postcards from Berlin all over floor.
She got down from her sleep and sat beside her daughter.
Her daughter Reshmi was still playing with those postcards.
'Egulo kotha thekey peley tumi?'(where from you discovered these?)
She asked Reshmi.
'Papa gave them to me...'
Reshmi answered.
'Papa? When did he come?'
Ananya was surprised.

Just then, Aniket stepped into the room.
'You so early?'
Ananya asked.
'Bolchi porey, agey dyakho ... eta pochondo?'(going to tell you later, first have a look at this, you like it?)
Aniket asked her as he placed on her hand an artefact.
A prayer wheel made of wood with intricate carvings.
'Kothay peley?'(where did you find it?)
Ananya asked.

'The boss...he got pleased with my works...and he gave that to me...he brought it from Tibet...he had gone there on holidaying...'
Aniket answered.
'But...but...'
Ananya couldn't find words proper to express her bedazzlement.

She looked at the wheel.
She touched the carvings.
"Amakey dao!'
Reshmi suddenly declared.
Ananya gave the wheel to her daughter.
Reshmi started moving it.

The Mother (of a country)

There's no end of works for Soudamini. Be in winter, summer or monsoon. She would have to wake up as early as four thirty or five, then would have to go to the shed first. Then she would give grains and straws to her flock of hens, goats.
After that she would start sweeping the yard with broom.
If it is winter or summer her works remain simple, just to broom.
If it is monsoon, there is no need to sweep though.
After that she would have to go wake up her sons  and daughters.
They would try to wriggle on the cot.
But Soudamini would never stop from waking them up.
Her husband, Haran, would go to the fields, waking up even before her. His mind was always with his fields and cows.
If he could, he would go and sleep in the paddy field which he owned.
He loved his one acre land of paddy field the most. The mahajans, the zaminders, and now the merchants- they all tried to snatch that land from him. But they could not do that from Haran's father.
They could not take that from him as well.

The one acre land.

Haran's only Love.

Soudamini, on the contrary, had never shown love to anything, barring working till morn to night.
She would gather stray leaves of coconut and twigs to tend fire in the earthen chulla. She would cook rice and lentils.
She would send her children to the primary school some two miles away from their hut. She would, in a small bag, pack puffed rice and a bit of vegetables or grounded flour for her four children.
After sending them to school, she would take the cloths heaped on the floor of their hut, to the nearby pond.
After washing those clothes and bathing, she would come back home with a pitcher of water.
When she would return, her husband, she would find sitting at the dawa.
She would hurriedly serve him the meagre food she had cooked.
Haran would take the food and go away to the field.
An acre land of his love, the paddy fields.

By that time the children, coming home would start playing at the yard.
Soudamini would watch them, sitting at the dawa, resting her body against the bamboo pole that supported the thatched roof.

At dusk Haran would return with his cows.
Soudamini would take the cows to the shed. Feed the cows, tend them, tend the flocks of hens and goats.

At the evening, after tapers would be lighted at the tulsi manch, Soudamini would go near her earthen chulla again.
There she would have to cook food for her children and husband, if there were something to cook.

If not, she would still go there, to boil something. The vegetables or the grains of rice.
She would eat after all were served.
And she would sleep after all would have slept.
That's Soudamini.
The mother.
Soudamini had never expressed her love though.
For anything in her life.

Padmaja's hurt

'Ei, ei, shon...'
(You ..you...listen...)
Padmaja was trying to call her grandson Gablu.
Her joys of life. The bubbly spirited one.
Always running around.
And then she heard a sound.
The way a football bounces and hits something.
Then something falling onto the floor and breaking.

'Ei re...'(now you see...)
Padmaja tried to go to the spot.
Her hipbone aches nowadays if she tries to move fast.
Still she tried to walk up to the spot.

Gablu's mother Sruti rushed out of her kitchen where she was trying to arrange the utensils which the maid had left spread.
'O this Malati di, how many times have I told her to keep things tidy...but who listens...'
Saying all these she rushed out.
Morning.
Office time.
Sruti's husband would go out soon.
Now Gablu.
'Must've kicked that football into the tea table...'
Rushing out, she saw Gablu standing there.
Sruti couldn't hold back her angst.
'Khali dhustumi?'(always running and playing?)
She gave a hard slap to Gablu. Right on his cheek.
Gablu was more shocked than surprised.
He looked at his father.
Tathagata was tying his shoelace.
He looked up.
'What? Who slapped Gablu?'

Hearing his father's voice Gablu started crying.
Sruti got more angry.
She was about to give another slap to Gablu when Padmaja intervened and the slap, instead of falling on Gablu, hit Padmaja's arm.

Tathagata stood up.
Padmaja felt her arm to be aching severely.
The muscles were getting numb.

'Oh! I am terribly sorry! Apnar laglo?
Ki je kori?(you got hurt? What now could I do?)
Sruti was highly embarrassed.

Tathagata said nothing.
He took his bag and went out.
Gablu's cries had turned into sobbing.
Sruti  got busy tending her mother in law's arm.
Padmaja sat down on a chair.

Gablu was trying to fathom his mother's and granny's reactions.

While Sruti was attending Padmaja, Padmaja just said,
'Have you noticed those fruits at our garden?'

Padmaja was amused.
'Why talking about garden now?'

'Na...just wanted to say, I and your father in law planted a small tree...it had got grown and now borne a fruit after so many years...now if someone would hit the fruit before it would ripen, or try to malign it by using external force, like poking it...I would feel hurt...'

Saying this Padmaja stood up slowly and started walking to her room.
Gablu silently came and held the end of Padmaja's saree.

Sruti stood there, stupefied, for awhile.
Then she smiled.
She realised how anger could only cause hurt to people, to trees, to the whole house.

Mohini's Murat

Mohini goes to her garden, just at the front of her house.
A small garden.
Her Paradise.
Her ways to be in her heaven, far away from the madding crowd.
Specially in the morning, when the town has not woken.

Those saplings.
They keep her awake all day and all night.
And when going to the garden, she tends their leaves, waters them, and admires the beauty of those blossoms and buds, she finds her moment of bliss.

Her Murat stands there just by her side, often smiling at her ways of nurturing her garden of peace and beauty.
Mohini finds her living there.
Right there at the hearts of those trees, saplings, their lives.

She finds her Murat too.
She finds her Murat in her.

Ranjana's waking up

Ranjana soon after opening the window of their bedroom of their two bhk flat, found drops of dew on the sil.
Those drops were glistening like drops of pearls, with the beams of the woken morn.
A day of her town.
A sleepy muffasil town, with its sweetness of love and sacrosanct morning. Not so far away she found the blooming trees.
A morning of spring.
She looked at her hubby.
Still sleeping.
Her daughter.
She was asleep too.
She pulled the curtain aside.
The morn came with light falling on the floor of their bedroom.

'Wake up you...surjimama dichchey hama ranga jama gaye oi...(the sun uncle is crawling, see, with a colorful shirt on him...)'
She sang whispering  into her daughter's ears.
Little Labonya turned back her head and wrapped her dad.
'Ar ektu ghumoi...'(let me sleep a bit more...)
She said sleepily.
She kissed on Labonya's forehead.
In her half asleep state, little Labonya smiled.

After freshening up she stood at the balcony with her cup of tea.

Every morning, this is her ritual.

Instead of spending time at the room where deities were kept, she would just stand here and try to appreciate the new born day.

To her it is no less than a worship, for in the birth of a day, she finds her God.
It is not that she doesn't pray, but why to confine prayers in a room filled with deities only?

The morning had become her deity.
The waking up too, much like her sleeping off.

And standing at the balcony as she would watch people getting into their daily struggles for survival, she would pray, for all.
For that newspaper delivery boy, for that milkman paddling away, for that daily labourer walking briskly with a spade on his shoulder, for that old woman who goes wandering, for that music composer who would fine tune his instruments early in the morning-setting free notes of music from his sitars, tanpuras, guitars, harmoniums, tablas, for that rickshaw puller who would take a hurried sip from a plastic cup his morning tea before getting to the street to earn a few coins for him and his family...

Ranjana would pray for them all.

And that way Ranjana found herself at home and also very much in the world around her.

The world of her worship.

Shilpi's starry starry night

Shilpi was trying of think of something to draw and paint. It was another day of her painted life. She had been doing painting since her child hood. After she got shifted to this town, living in a girls' hostel, for studies, she had kept alive her pastime of painting.
After the classes, when she walks back to the hostel, from the university, with theories of philosophy clogging her brain, she tries to refresh herself by looking around her.
Those trees which lined the avenue till she would reach the gate of her hostel would then appear to her as beautiful companions. When the breeze would blow stirring the leaves of those trees, she would think they were talking the meaning of life within themselves.
And the sky.
It always stays there over her mind and soul.
'Ki ato anmona hoye bhabish bol to?'(what do think being so absentminded?)
Her friend Camelia would ask her.
Camelia had always remained clung to Shilpi since they had become roommates.
In Shilpi she finds her alterego, her confidante.
If the colors of spring would create a nascent rise of desire in her, Camelia would say that to Shilpi.
'Find a boyfriend...'
Shilpi would say.
'Amar abar boyfriend! Ja dekhtey amay! Keu pochondo korbey na!''(Boyfriend for me! The way I look who would love me!)
Camelia would say.
'That's wrong...'
Shilpi would say.
'For beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and also within you...'
Shilpi would say.
'Bajey bokish na...(don't say all these...) You're beautiful, you're studious, you're different...you would never understand my issues...papa had said, soon after this course he would search for me a bridegroom!'
Camelia would retort.
'Why studying then?'
Shilpi would counter.
'Yes...yes...but you know...how difficult is it to spend money on a course like this, which has little scope in our country...'
Camelia would say.
'No branch of study is bad...there is a scope for everything...'
Shilpi would say, and start humming few lines from a song.
A Tagore.
'Tui dibbi achish...ki Korey je emon bhabey thakish?(you're living it in such a carefree way...how do you do that?)
Shilpi would smile.

Later in the evening, when the girls would go back to their rooms after gossip on movies and boyfriends, when Camelia would lie down on her bed, trying to make out what Socrates had tried to deliver to his disciples in the Symposium, Shilpi would take out her painting equipments.

Camelia would watch her through the corner of her eyes and would remark:
'Kaal kintu SKD Socrates dhorbey...(tomorrow SKD would take lessons on Socrates)'

'I know...'
Shilpi would say just and start working on the sketchbook.

But today, she was not finding any inspiration.
She was chewing the end of her pencil, thinking.
'Cherey dena baba...portey bosh...tor bhalor jonnoi bollam....(leave it...sit with the theories...saying it for your good)'
Camelia said.
Shilpi would look at Camelia and smile.

Just then her eyes fell on the portion of the late evening sky filled with stars and nebulas.
A clear night sky with its boundlessness.
Shilpi just went up to the window and looked at the sky.
'How beautiful...'
She thought.
Just then she heard the girls at the adjacent room listening to musical bandbox.
The late evening show.
And she knew it was a Don MacLean song that was being aired.
A Don MacLean.
Much like a song of Tagore.

She went back to her sketchbook smiling.
She got her inspiration.

She started moving her pencil on the sketchbook like she was not painting, but revealing her vision of a dream.
A Starry Starry night.

Camelia, finding Shilpi working, got down from her bed, and came near Shilpi, for she knew in Shilpi's works she would always find herself beautiful.

A granny's day of spring,

Ashalata was trying to do her thread work on a cotton cloth.
Nowadays, she couldn't even see well.
Age was slowly taking its toll upon her eyes. Her hands also shake a bit. Still, around this time, she would sit with her needle, colorful threads, and cotton cloths. For every year, all the way from the country of opulence her grandson from her son's side  would come.
She had other grandsons and granddaughters from her daughters' side, but she had always kept a very secret adoration or love for the son of her only son.
He bore the title of the family, according to the custom and more importantly inspite of being very much habituated to western culture and ethos, he had still kept a very Bengali heart.
In fact, Ashalata noticed, that Snehangshu, her son Santosh's only son, was more interested in anything Bengali, be it food, songs, or literature.
So, she would make every year a special embroidery upon a simple piece of cotton cloth.
And Snehangshu would take it, and with it he would go away after his two or three day's stay.
Once Ashalata had asked Snehangshu what he actually did with all those cotton cloths.
He showed her a photo taken in his phone of a small wooden box where he had kept them, stored, like people store valuables.
That pleased Ashalata greatly.
She even became a bit emotional.

Her only son who had left her alone in the house built by her husband Indranath, soon after his marriage and settled at a faraway town, would come too, with his wife.

Her daughters would too arrive.
They being settled in faraway towns too.

But this year, before Holi or Doljatra as it is usually called here, the festival of colors, her daughters had called her and reported that they would be going together with their husbands and children for a tour.

Her only son, Santosh, upon hearing that his sisters and their husbands and children were not arriving, also thought that later they would gather at their ancestral house and have a fitting get together.
Ashalata became a bit morose, but soon she tried to console herself saying that after all she had grown old and had become overtly sensitive and perhaps sentimental.
She blamed her sadness to her senescence.
But, by God's grace, she was informed by
Santosh that though he and his wife would not be there, their son and her grandson Snehangshu would go and stay there at least for a day, if not two.

She became elated.
She had found an energy.
She asked her only companion and long time cook cum butler cum errand man, Naru to clean the room adjacent to her room in her small single storied house which her late husband used as study cum living. She had made Naru to bring vegetables and groceries and fish and meat from the market.
She herself supervised Naru when he broomed the bed, put bed cover and pillow covers.

From the morning she was humming a tune or so.
Happy as she was.

At around ten, a taxi stopped in front of her house.
She at once asked Naru to move to the gate to help Snehangshu to offload his bag or luggage.

She followed Naru too, but due to arthritis she couldn't move fast.

And just when she was about to be on the verandah, Snehangshu came and touched her feet.
She took his chin by her hand and embraced him.

'Kemon acho didi?'
Snehangshu said.
Ashalata smiled almost like a child,
'Now that you have come I am so happy!'
She said.

The day went in cooking various Bengali cuisine and serving them to Snehangshu and in turn listening to stories from him about the country where he had been working for the last four years.
'Would you not come back soon?'
She asked.
'Na didi, I have works...'
Snehangshu said.

The day turned evening. Then night.
The granny and her grandson kept on talking, laughing, exchanging stories.
The grandson had given his granny a beautiful scarf and some tinned food items.
Granny had given the grandson another embroidered cotton cloth.

After dinner, when he was about to go to his room, Snehangshu said,
'Didi, this time I would go back to our house soon...by tomorrow afternoon...will that be okay?'

Ashalata turned her head to one side.
She had a deep sense of hurt when she heard that but she couldn't plead her grandson to stay for at least a day more.

He might have works, she thought.
She couldn't be selfish.

Next morning when the granny and the grandson were having tea, the granny finally gathered some confidence and asked:
'Dadu bhai, how wonderful it would have been if you would have stayed for at least one day more...'

'But didi , you know, I got works. The company where I work at that foreign country is actually thinking of opening a subsidiary here ... And I would have to be very much busy in doing liaison...you see...'
Snehangshu informed Ashalata.

Ashalata again bent her head sideways.
Of course she could understand her grandson's works and their importance.

The hour of departure came.
'Uff! Tumi ja khawaley na thamma...akhono hojom hoi ni...'
(The amount of food you had served to me are yet to be digested...)
Snehangshu tried to ease off the grimness that loomed over his granny's face.
Ashalata tried to smile.

Naru had managed to arrange for a taxi.
It would take Snehangshu to the train station.

The taxi was waiting at the gate.
Snehangshu touched Ashalata's feet.
Ashalata tried to keep her composure.

Just then, Snehangshu's cell started ringing.
He took out the cellphone and went a few paces away .

'Oh! Really! That's fabulous! '

That was the last bit of conversation which Ashalata could hear as her grandson came near her.

'Granny, know what?'
The grandson was visibly elated.
'What?'
Ashalata asked.
'Just a few months, say eight or nine, after that, I would be in this country!'

'What do you mean?'

'I asked my boss to keep me posted if there would be any chance of fitting me into the subsidiary that would be opened here, and he just informed me that if I wish, I could join the subsidiary unit once it would start operating...and that is only a few months away!'

The grandson gushed.

'But your parents? Santosh? Mugdha? Will they be happy?'

'Why not? They would get their son at home...
And...'
Snehangshu added,
Like an afterthought,
'If they would get worried about my career options, my future, I would convince them...
Why worry?'

Ashalata felt that she had given away those embroidered cotton cloths to the fittest person in the world.

She smiled.

The sky of spring had wondrous Hues spread like a canvas dipped in a riot of colors.
Ashalata thought Doljatra or Holi had arrived early at her home.
A bit early.

Quite the opposite, *

Not many years ago, there some where lived a king.
The king had a kingdom as usual. But that kingdom was not owned by his family.
It was a curious kind of kingship that that piece of land followed.
Kings were chosen by some people who were chosen again by the citizens of that piece of land.

Now the present king before being chosen had the purity of heart.
He being a descendant of a very poor family had all those memories of hardship and sufferings.
Memories which were strong.
Memories which made him a noble man.
Those people who had chosen him had thought of putting him into the chair of the king.
A king's chair?
Well, as thrones are usually found in real kingdoms with real kings and queens, here in this particular piece of land chairs were given to the king.
Soon after taking on the chair, the king had all the noble thoughts.
He promised the people the cleanliness.
He promised that there would be no such thing as unnecessary burden upon people.

But due to some lack of foresight and proper perspectives, every day different things happened.
Those courtiers who actually chose the king, were always making some things which could bring in troubles.
The king was not unintelligent.
He kept his courtiers (both men and women, as he had women courtiers too)
informed of his decisions.

But, his courtiers.
They were often too busy either to please the king or to please themselves.
Now this curious pleasure seeking had its side effects.
Often, in the garb of pleasing the king, they were actually causing problems for the king.
For example, only the other day, without even knowing properly a woman courtier brought a teenaged boy before the king and reported:
'Sir, this boy was shouting against you, calling you bad names just outside the gate of Your Majesty's house.
I was passing by and nabbed him.
He could be a great danger to you!'

The king sought opinion from other courtiers.
The other courtiers had not proper knowledge of the incident.
But they thought why would a woman say all these stuff, after all women were the most kind hearted people.
In that land there was actually a great respect for women.
Women were never maligned.

But this woman, actually did not even herself witness the incident.
She was reported of the incident by some people.
But she thought it could be a too good opportunity to be missed to please the king.
So in the court she said that.
After all, who would make an inquiry upon a king's judgement?

So that teenaged boy was sent to the prison.
There he was tortured by the gaoler.The gaoler was just like that women courtier.
He was also interested to please the king.
For by doing so he thought he would get something, some reward.

But the boy had read stories of people who talked of peace.
The boy had read stories of people dying with smiling faces while saving their mothers or fathers or sisters or brothers.
So he didn't budge.
This made the gaoler even more desperate.
He took the boy's non violent non conformist attitude as a great challenge.
He kept on torturing him.

While the gaoler was doing so, the king was reported by one very old courtier of his, that the boy actually was trying to draw the attention of the king to the ills happening in that piece of land.
He was actually yelling so that his words could reach His Majesty's ears.
He never knew that His Majesty was not in his house.
The king , upon hearing this got very much confused.
He summoned that woman courtier,whose name was Belambi,and asked:

'Tell me, Belambi, the truth!'

Belambi: Sir, I have been up this hour wide awake, all through the nights.

The king: I demand, or eh...place an entreaty, what troubles you?

Belambi: Nothing Sir, for Your Highness is well aware how much I work for the land...

The king: That who doesn't know?

All other courtiers were watching the king and that woman courtier.
They actually had great respect for both.
The king was respected because he was the king.
The woman was actually getting double respect, first she was a woman, and secondly she was an important member of the decision making body of the kingdom.

Just when all these were happening, someone informed that the boy who was in the prison was in dire straits.

The king looked at the courtiers.
Belambi was sitting there on her chair.

The king looked at Belambi.
Belambi was not sure what she could say.

The messenger was waiting.
Staring at His Majesty's face.

The king was thinking.
The courtiers too.

Belambi signalled the messenger to come near her.
When he came she asked:
Tell me, is there any bad news?
The messenger whispered:
Don't say madam, the poor little boy is actually on the verge of death.

Hearing this Belambi got very much tensed.
She asked the king:
Your Highness, if you could allow me, could I go and see for myself what was happening at the prison?

The king allowed her to go.
Belambi forbade other courtiers not to come with her, when they thought they could accompany her.

Upon arriving the prison cell where the boy was left dying, Belambi was very much shocked.
She had never been to a dingy room like that ever before.

'What a room!'
Was her first remark.
Then she went near that boy.
The boy looked at her and just asked:
As you are a woman, I would call you Mother, will it be okay?
His voice was feeble.
His body was frail.
His eyes were drooping.

Belambi looked at him and said:

Yes...

Then the boy asked:
Now that I am in prison, tell me, you are sleeping it well?

Belambi got angry.
How dare you??!

She yelled.

This brought that gaoler to the spot.
The gaoler saw that he would never get a better opportunity to prove his loyalty to the king and the courtiers.

He started beating the boy.

Belambi rushed out.
She went straight home.

But that night she didn't sleep.
The next morning when she went to the court, everyone noticed that.

Belambi had got the king's attention too, who, during a break in the sessions of the court, while munching potato chips, asked:
Tell me, is it your physical discomfiture that makes you to walk so unbraced or did you steal out of your house and caught the contagions of the night?

Belambi was greatly affected by the king's query.

She said nothing but her eyes were full of drops of water.

After the sessions she ran to the prison.
The boy was still there.
Belambi asked the gaoler not to torture the boy and to make every arrangement to save him.
The gaoler was amused.
He thought by torturing the boy he would get a reward.
Now it had turned quite the opposite!

So he asked the courtier:
Madam, if you pardon me, what should I do?

Belambi said:
Let me first consult with the king and other courtiers, till then keep him here, and don't beat him.

Then Belambi went to her house, a bit satisfied.

But the next morning when she was going to the court, she heard the news that people of that piece of land had gathered before the court.

They were actually pleading to place a memorandum before the king.

Belambi went to the court.
But before she could even sit, she was informed by a messenger from His Highness that the king had actually entreated her to go home and to stay there till something could be done about the boy.
Hearing this Belambi got a bit sad.
But as she couldn't defy the king's order where kings were actually selected by his courtiers, she went home, sobbing.

(* note on the title: as there can be no piece of land where there is a kingdom and a king who is again selected by courtiers with no hierarchy, it is contrary to any idea of kingship and also to democracy. Hence, the story should be taken as purely figment of imagination. Still if people find any similarity with any incident happening around them with the story, then quite naturally, their power of imagination will be solely responsible.)

A song of dolphin

With final exams being over, Gary meaning Gourik and Titli were getting bored at home.
So, this Sunday when Kamal asked the two to go for a drive to Diamond Harbour, they both instantly got ready, though they were pretty amazed, as it was only six forty in the morning.
Sulekha however only said 'why take them?'
'They need to see that for themselves...'
Kamal said, as he started talking with his boss over phone.
'Can you go with us too?'
Titli asked.
Sulekha looked at Kamal.
'No...I will have to make arrangements for lunch here...besides got too much of laundry pending...'
Saying this she started putting things into a small folio bag for Kamal.
A torch, some medicines, water bottles, knife, phone charger, etc.
'But for how long? Dupurey ki baritey khabey na?'(will not have lunch at home?)
Sulekha asked, knowing Kamal must be going out for some work.
'Not for more than six hours...'
Kamal replied.
It was only seven in the morning when they got out.
Sulekha was insisting on their having breakfast at home.
'We would have something on the way...otherwise we would be late...'
Kamal brought out the car.
He seemed to be a bit grim and in a hurry.
Knowing Kamal, their dad's habit of going out for emergency works, like helping people or rescuing animals, specially marine creatures like turtles, tortoise, etc, they did not say anything then.

'What's the work dad?'
Titli asked finally when they had crossed Amtala. She could no longer hold back her curiosity.
Gary whose real name was Gourik, was as usual playing chess on a tablet, sitting at the backseat.
He had no other passion.
Chess all the time if he is having any time to spare.
Already got enlisted with a chess club of repute in the locality.
He being engaged with his game of chess, was actually not very much curious.
For him it was like an unexpected Sunday outing.

Kamal had already bought some snacks
for them.
Titli was munching a cookie.
'Once reaching we could have our lunch there...'
Kamal said.
It was a fine winter morning.
Clear sky.
Mild chill in the air.
Overall temperate.

'Yes...what the work?'
Gourik asked.
For the first time he opened his mouth to say something.
His eyes were on the digital chess board though.

'You will see for yourself...if we could arrive there in proper time...'

When they arrived at the spot a huge crowd had gathered.

Kamal pushed through the crowd, holding Titli and Gourik firmly in his grip by two hands.

'What the...'
Titli was about to say.

But what she saw once they arrived pushing through the crowd was unbelievable.

A fairly large river dolphin!
Was it alive?

It was.
For it was slowly moving its tail.

Kamal asked Titli and Gourik to stay there as he started dialling numbers in his cell.

'Yes... I am Kamal Dasgupta, yes...From dept of Marine Biology ... Send forces... And make arrangements so that the dolphin could be taken to the river and released...quick!'

Kamal was speaking with great reserve though Titli and Gourik noticed how much anxious their father had become.
Then he went up to the dolphin.
He sat beside its head and gently started moving his hand over it.
Sort of caressing it.
The creature made a strange sound.
A very curious one.
Suddenly there was a lull.
Those people who had gathered there and were shouting and yelling and thinking of killing the creature, suddenly stopped talking.
They never heard such a pain ridden yet beautiful cry of a dolphin.
The dolphin again did that.
Titli and Gourik had by then come there too.
They also started caressing the creature.
A local man, probably a fisherman came forward.
'Babu, amra otakey jodi kachi diye bendhey nodi te niye cherey di akhon...cholbey...apni bolen?'
(Sir if we can make arrangements to take this creature to the river by tying it with strong ropes, will it do? Tell us?)

The man said.
A group of local fishermen had come forward too.

'Amra eta dekhtey parchi na...kharap lagchey khub...proshashon kokhon ashbey ke Janey...deri hoye jabey...'
('We can't see this any more...feeling real bad...when will the authorities turn up no body knows...it could be late...)
Said a young man from the group.

Kamal looked at the crowd.
Not far away.
He looked at the creature.
It was still alive.
Chances are very much there.

'OK...do that...'
He said, as he started opening his shoe laces.
'Going to the river with them?'
'Yes! We'll release it to the river...you two would be with me too!'
Kamal said, as he got rid of his shoes and socks.
'Bring a plastic carry bag from the car and put your shoes too into it...'
He asked Titli giving her the car key.
'But dad, how come you know that the dolphin was there?'

'Heard it on the radio in the early morning programme of local people reporting as amateur reporters of incidents happening in their locality...this programme I don't miss...specially if I hear anything related to marine Ecology...you know that, don't you?'Kamal said, patting Gourik's shoulder.

The fishermen and local youths had already arranged bamboos and ropes and boats.

They were working at great speed.
Many people had joined hands.
The crowd had grown.
But they were not yelling or shouting any more.
Instead a great sense of anticipation prevailed there.
As if they all wanted now the dolphin to get to the river.

The dolphin let out another cry.
But this time it did not sound like a morbid cry.
It sounded more like a yell of joy.
Just then a group of officials and local policemen arrived.
They started cordoning off the area.

Aniruddha, Sree and a rock climb

'So Aniruddha,are you tired of the climb, mon amour?'
Sree asked.
Sree being what she is.
Always full of energy to climb new frontiers. Right now they are in the middle of a climb. They had chosen a small hill this time.
Ropes were as usual tied to their harness.
Aniruddha was breathing fast. Sree knows her love. Knows him more than anyone else could know Aniruddha.
Her mon amour.
She thought Aniruddha might suffer from asphyxiation. She hanging from the rope slowly lowered herself.
'Take a deep breath, take in all the air you can, slowly, then release the same...relax...don't stiffen your muscles...'
Sree was constantly saying these.
Aniruddha, did the same.
He knew only upon Sree he could trust.
His childhood love.
His only trust in this difficult terrain.

Like that rope with which he was hanging.
And like that cliff.
Sree smiled.
Seeing Aniruddha getting less tensed.
The sun was on their back, few beads of sweat getting accumulated on their necks, hands, torsos.
Tough it was.
Too tough.
Excruciating.
But a promise is a promise.
A promise to reach that summit after two days and two nights continuous fight against the formidability of Nature and her awesome splendour.
'Only few minutes more...see...there lies our summit...there once reaching we would love us more and love all the flora and fauna around us...it would be our discovery...only discovery that could make us true...'
Sree kept on egging Aniruddha.
Aniruddha looked at his Sree.
His childhood love.
His cord of belief.
Insurmountable one.

He with a hammer started ramming upon the nail.
It got into the rock.
He tried to pull it using all his might.
It held.
He tied the rope.
One more to go.
Sree had pulled herself onto the top almost.
She was tying herself with a long cord from the thick trunk of a tree.
She would be lying down and extending her hand to Aniruddha.
She would pull him up.

Aniruddha looked up.
He saw the smile in Sree's face.
The Peace of a Beauty as she appeared with the beads of sweat glittering upon her resplendent face.
Her hair like a dreamy cascade flowing down her shoulders.
A blackish brown cascade.

Aniruddha knew he could climb any cliff.
For his Sree is there.
His Mon amour.

Couple

My Love is a walk down my town,
My love is singing your love night to morn,
And to find you in my eyes
As you find me flying in the sky