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)

a dented bumper...

'I'm...I'm extremely sorry...sorry...Mister...'
She jumped out of her sedan and walked up with haste to me...
Apologetic...
While I stood right on the road, my door half opened...
Staring down at the front bumper which got a big 'kiss'...dented...
I was furious!
How could someone drive so insanely in a narrow populated street like this?
I thought and looked down...at the front bumper...
'Sorry mister...'
She repeated second time...
I looked up...
And saw a face...
Longish but beauteous...
'You're in a terrible hurry , I guess...the way you nicked me...and before that nicked a van...'
I commented, coldly;

'Please...Don't mind...I can pay up...'
She said, looking nervous...
Glancing at her watch, at least twice in between...
 She must have been in a hurry
I thought...
'Okay...'
I thought to leave the 'kiss' there, unpaid...
And went up to the door...
'Thanks...'
I heard ...her sweet voice...
'Don't speed that way...'
I looked back and remarked,smiling...
'Yes! I shouldn't ...but today...my friend...I mean...my best friend...is taken ill...hospitalized...so...'
She mumbled, putting in clarification-
Emphasizing the phrase 'best friend';


I smiled and nodded...
She stared at me...half nodded...
And smiled...realizing that I realized her predicament...

She went away...
I took my road...
Only...the dent remained at my front bumper...
I didn't care to make it even...
I kept the 'kiss'...there...

the progenitor...

'Being the progenitor
Is really awesome...'
He thought, sitting under the cool shadow of the tree...
Watching his young one running through the greens like colt gone scotfree!
He just looked at his creation
Running by his childish whims and screaming
like hell breaking loose-
Into an ambiance that was otherwise so somnolent;

He stared blankly at the newest Bolt
Running to and fro aimlessly, so animalistic and so instinctive!
'Hey dad! will you mind if I run a bit away from you?'
His poem asked him...
He nodded...silently, full of satiety...

And the colt ran...
Ran away from him towards more green pastures...
He became anxious a bit...
'Kid...don't run too far..dear!'
He yelled...
'Its okay! dad! don't you worry!'
The receding kid answered back, sort of screaming...
The scream echoed...
He, the progenitor, was anxious no doubt..
But he felt the childish need...
He felt within the child...the child's curiosity to explore the unexplored...
To know the unknown...

Only the distance between him and the kid was a bit worrying...
'But he would always be there...let him run...'
He thought...
He felt a dual pull...
On one hand anxiety was gripping him...
On the other, he felt proud...of his creation getting more beautiful and strong...
And...
Sitting under the shade of the tree, he, the progenitor, had a dream...
The sweet dream of his kid returning like a great explorer...an Ulysses...
Returning home...after a long expedition...

at the souq...

The cave like entrance created confusions in my mind...
But once I got into the souq...
A whole world opened up before me...
A whole world of assorted goodies and gifts and spices...
I wandered aimlessly at the souq...
Enthralled by the textiles that hung from the wooden rails...
Traditional niqab...black...with head gears...
Modern versions with the face uncovered...
And shirts and jackets with geometric designs...and colors...so varied like jigjaw puzzles...

Wandering, I came to the place where spices were kept in baskets...
Spices ....ummmmm
The aroma once got into me-
Sent ripples of fruitfulness...
I walked like a dazed woman...
And then...
Somewhere in the middle I heard someone talking a bit loud
That surpassed the hullabaloo of the buyers and sellers...
I looked around...
And saw him...
Standing right there...
And the soft light of the afternoon fell on his face that looked helplessly perspiring...
At the souq...
He was definitely
Having difficulty in expressing himself;

I knew he did not know arabic...
But I know that!
So I went near him...
Thought of lifting my niqab even!
And put him into a surprise!

But then...more than committing a blasphemy
I thought...
It could lead to severe bio-electrical shocks to many...
To him...to my neighbours and family...
And it might cause my harm...
Lead me astray...

So...
I went near him,
Had a good look of his face
( which still had the innocence of his younger days...only the sight of stray beard was new to me!)
...after so many years...alas!  through my veiled eyes...
And slipped away-
Into the crowd;
Leaving him stranded there
Like a dumbstruck man,
Who was surely suffering from memory loss;

Before I took the last turn
That would take me away from his sight...and the souq
I turned my face slightly...
Pretending to look back at a shop that sold shoes-
And I saw him...
Still standing like someone who had seen a ghost!
Standing..as he was....in a middle of great confusion...
While the sellers still bragged him about some wristwatches and bottles of spices...


At the souq...
I met my old fling...
And still
Kept my hijab...

a rock song for you...

Darn! seeing you there so meek and timid, like a kitten...
I feel like pouring the rain of fire onto your shy figure...
Rain...
Rain full of fire and glowing warmth
That would send shiver down your spine dear!
Down your spine...
And jar your fragile heart to wakefulness...
And bar your senses from asking for anything more!
You would then, I hope, I pray, dear,
Feel the pangs of love restrained!
Love so restrained by chains of thorns that press onto one
To pierce through the skin...
Leaving spots dark...blemishes permanent...
And blood would ooze out from those sweet injury-spots of love,
Drops of red red fire...
Drops of red red wine!

Darn!
To see you there so timid and meek
Is like facing the iceberg on the voyage...hindering my movement of fiery soul!
I feel like pouring my redness onto dear!
Rain...
Rain of blood and wine!
Down your spine...
Sending shocks to you to defrost you
From your ice cold solid state!

Darn!
You're such a goddamn cold
A cold cold solid state...
And I am so fiery!
So fiery red, liquid...

The envelope...

She found the envelope
Kept within a book...after twenty years almost!
A red one...hand made stuff...
She looked at the envelope...
And...
Remembered the day...

A wet wintry day it was...
Mid December but the sky was a bit cloudy...
'It would rain...probably'
He murmured, sitting by her side at the deserted canteen of the university...
A scrapbook was open before him as usual...
She ordered two samosas...
The hot samosas came soon with red tomato sauce...
Rakhal da was busy calculating something sitting on his high stool...
The day was wet, moist, unlike a December date...
She was looking around...
He was drawing a picture or something on a page of the scrapbook...

'You have got nothing to say na?'
She had finally asked him, breaking the silence...
Between them...in the lonely canteen...with empty tables barring theirs;

'What?'
He had muttered, busy drawing a pencil sketch on the paper...
'About us?'
She enquired, feeling despondent really...
'Hmmm...'
Was his brief iconic reply;
'You're an ass...'
She teethed her words, mincing almost...
Enraged within;

'Hole...add that up...'
He said and chuckled, still drawing something;
She felt like grabbing the scrapbook and throwing it away...
She felt like landing a fist of fury on his nonchalant face...
He...
Was still drawing...
'Okay...I'm going...here's the money for samosas...eat more if you want...'
Saying this she went away, hurriedly, out of the canteen...
Her mom called just then...
Out on the street she yelled over phone to her dearest mom:
'Yes! yes! I agree to marry that poker faced middleaged junk! don't bother! tell dad to arrange for everything...but I'll be late for home today...'
Saying this she hurried across the crowded footpath selling books...
At a crossing nearby...
She had heard a familiar call:
'Hello! are you a deaf? calling you half the distance almost!'
She turned around...
To see him running towards her
With something that looked like a crude hand made envelope;
'What's this?'
She asked when he, huffing and out of breath,
Gave her the thing...
'Nothing...just some nonsensical idiotic gibberish!'
He yelled, unmindful of the peopled street and honking cars and hawkers...
Then he ran away...
She looked at him...running zig-zag...
Through the crowd...

the mariner...

I was fooling around the boat...
Knowing that she would be out sailing tumro...
With it...
The girl of the evening had turned into a dazzling woman of night...
I could see her ear studs twinkling in the dark sky...
I touched the wooden plank of the boat...
The stern post looked shiny...almost gleaming from the light that shone on it from the hull...
The white navigation light was on...
I placed my hands on the ropes and pulled them...
Like a child fiddling with a toy...
Only...
That effort of mine brought her out...
She...
The mariner...
Wearing jeans and a white flannel shirt
And a dark green jacket...
Her eyes fell on me...standing on the platform...
'Hi! need rest...going out tumro...want anything?'
She uttered in a tired voice, almost yawning...
'na..nope...only wanted to have a look at your beautiful boat...'
I mumbled, unsure of what to say...
She smiled, waved her hand and went back...disappeared...
'Hello...miss...hello...?'
I called out...
The boat rocked on the restful dark water...
As if nodded in silence...
I looked around...
Found no one...
Only found a small wooden board nearby...
Something was pasted on it...a kind of a notice:
'This is an abandoned place.Enter at our own risk'
I smiled
And thought to lie down on the platform-
Right beside the noticeboard...
After all who could leave one's beloved? even if ...
The voyage had been ended hurriedly-
And the boat had been left abandoned for long...

at the 'mechanics' class...

'So when we try to create a kind of free body diagram...
We always remember that we are considering the object to be free initially from all forces...
We think of a space...three dimensional...and then we imagine...
Yes! we imagine the object to be going through certain forces...
Imagine...dear...Imagine...'
The professor at the lectern suddenly raised his otherwise mellowed voice...
And pronounced the word Imagine with a severity...as if he wanted the whole class to be poets...

'Forces..'
He thought sitting on the last bench, pressing his back on the green wall that left flakes of green tinge on his shirt...
'Are every where...who's free really?
Then he took up his pencil and the drawing board...
Thought of a space
Put an object named 'i' there...
And let it float...
Then he thought of the space...
Thought of air...and its density...
Thought of the bottomline of the drawing board as the ground...
Put arrow downward to indicate 'g'...the gravitational force working on 'i'...
Now to keep it there floating...
He needed to make the situation on board a bit changed...
(So he imagined...)
He thought of exerting some kind of force upward...
He thought of the object as a rocket...
Exhausting ...gases downward...
He drew arrows up which negated 'g'...
He provided some kind of stability to the rocket like object...
Then he thought...
It was not so easy...
He ransacked his head...
The freebody diagram engaged him...
He was captivated by the diagram and the forces...
He felt he himself got entangled...

 'Freedom...'the professor, meanwhile declared from his lectern...
'is just another diagrammatic expression of servitude to forces...internal and external...'
He nodded...
And smiled...looking at his sketch...
And the object on the board...
'I'...
The object...
It was there...
But not going anywhere...
Only its energy was dissipating all the time...
All the time...

on rereading 'Aronyok'...

Rereading 'Aronyok'
Is my favourite pastime...
It had become so...over the years...

When first I got hold of that Bibhuti babu's book...
I was only fifteen then...
Young, dreamy, adventurous, erratic...
So...'Aronyok' made me wild...
I ran after wild berries, wild blossoms, wilderness...
And that led me to stranger realities...
Realities of sitting on the bow of a country boat under the soft, insane moon...
And humming tunes of 'Holud pakhi...'
And then...
I grew older...
The book grew older with me too!
It brought before me...
Realities of different kind the next...
Realities of Kunta...
Her piteous eyes...
Her rustic innocence...
My mind led me far and wide...
My 'Aronyok' led me to the depth...

It led me to Poesy, philosophy, people,and dreams...
It helped in a transgression...of a different kind...


'Aronyok'...
You made and spoiled me!

('Aronyok', is one of the greatest works of Bibhuti Bhushan Banerjee(1898-1950). It presents beautifully, in the most wondrously romantic manner, the life of the country people living near Mohanpura Reserve Forest and its fringes...it is a fiction, but it is somewhat journalistic in design, presenting great details of life of rustic people of Bengal and Bihar...)

winter...

You, sometimes, come to me like that grand old nanny...
Shaking and trembling all the time, wrapped in blanket...
Chewing betel-leaves...and telling us stories of ghosts...post dinner...

Sometimes, you turn up as a college going girl...busy...talking on cellphone...
discussing a point of rendezvous with someone-
Bubbly, unpretentious, sunny!

Sometimes you're a great cricketer...
Sending the leather to distant dew-laden meadows-
Amidst cheering minions;

Sometimes you stay indolent...
Like that next door boy...
Just listening to rock songs and boozing...

Sometimes...after the sunset...you bring warmth...
With my love's lips...
so tempting and lustrous!

Winter...
Have I told you ever-
That I miss you the year long...waiting and waiting...with all my heart?

at a coffee shop...

'Cool! so you've become a regular scribbler?...what do you scribble? How you manage to find time out? How's your kid and wife? how's kaku?'
She asked all these at one go, as if she had little time at her disposal and would go out soon...of the coffee shop...on this beautiful wintry sunny, sunday morn...at Park street...
I looked at her...
She was sitting opposite to me...
'Yes...about  childhood, mother, nature, and love...I scribble whenever I find time...kid is going good...wife is perfectly alright...dad is a bit ailing...'
I answered like writing down a horizontal line...no ups and no downs...
As I looked at her...who had grown a bit plump...womanly...
'Buss? aur kuch likhte ho ki nahin?'
She asked, suddenly as she completed her third long sip...taking a good amount of chocolate layered coffee from the glass tumbler...looking at me...with her eye brows dancing...
I know this...I know this dancing of her eyebrows meant playfulness...
This shows that she is happy...
And this knowledge that she is terribly happy, pleased me a lot!
So I smiled, and looked at my glass tumbler...not a sip taken so far...
'Sorry! I'm asking too many queries! Take a sip...its really good!'
She exclaimed and entreated...
'yeah...'
I whispered almost...and took a sip...and the hot chocolate went through my pipe...Ah! smooth...warm...
Now...it was probably her turn to scrutinise me...
'You look trimmed...'
She said, kind of commented upon, casually, merrily...
I smiled...
Not knowing what she had actually meant by the word 'trimmed'...my hair? my body? my moustache?
'You didn't answer me...'
She said, breaking a truffle cake by the  flat spoon...
I looked at her golden pendant hanging right on the cleavage...as coming to a brief view...a view of a moment...under the cover of her dupatta...
And looked outside...turning my head...
The cars were scarce on the sunday morn...
The red building on the other side of the road as seen through the big glass window of the coffee shop looked like freshly painted...
'Hey! you!'
She upped her tone a bit to gather my attention...
'Yes...dear...'
I murmured...
Suddenly her face went through a strange transformation, in front of my own eyes...
A sudden shadow of sadness made a brief impression upon her face of the morn...it stayed for a while before going away...
'I do write a lot...on varied things...about music, wine, painting, people, streets...life...'
I answered, taking my second sip from the tumbler...
'Not about me?'
She asked, looking at the broken truffle cake on the white chinaware at our table;

I remained silent and sighed,
She looked straight at me, looked at my eyes-straight, very very straight, like an arrow almost, sharp!
I looked at the road outside...getting busy gradually...
The red building appeared fresh and redder with the sun now falling on its facade...
'Hello! gone to another land? you poet?'
She asked...
I felt the warmth getting back to her after a brief coldness,
I felt my blood getting the warmth from her,
So...
I took the third sip and took out a piece of paper from my wallet...a folded piece of paper that had grown crinkly almost...
And opened the folds and placed it on the table before her;
She sort of jumped onto it and grabbed it as if it was an expensive thing lying...
She took it up and started reading it, softly,
Her eyebrows were all concentration...
Her face showed curiosity, eagerness and...
Well...I don't know...
I might be wrong...
But...
At that coffee shop, on that sunny, wintry morn, at Park street...
I saw a glimpse of Love...
In her eyes...

my grandad's turntable...

The other day, when I went up to my attic
I found my granddad's old Thorens...broken...
It was not that I saw it for the first time in my life lying there...defunct...dust covered...
I found it there...lying useless from my teenage days, perhaps...
But as the beautiful rays of the setting sun fell on it through the window...
I suddenly discovered that it was beautiful...
It was like rediscovering something...
It was like finding the past good in an ugly present...
So I went up to my grandad's turntable...
And placed my hand on the platter...
Knowing that I would have to wash my hand afterwards...
Knowing that the heap of dust would make me sneeze soon...
Still...
I placed my hand on my granddad's beautiful possesssion...
An ol' Thorens...
Under the twilight light...
The thing looked awesome!
As if it was also shivered by human touch after a long time...
I tried to move a bit the platter...
It moved!
It moved as if it came alive by my touch...
And...
And Methought I saw my granddad...sitting right there!
I saw him sitting right in front of my eyes....rocking on his favourite chair...and smiling at me...

Fancy...you are a cheat!

You...fanciful image...
You look so gorgeous...
In your knotted blouse red and green lehenga saree...
A designer one, I guess...
So breathtakingly beautiful!

I look at the peacocks dancing at the middle of the lehenga...
They dance all the way...
They just dance...from your lower abdomen to your feet...
And I keep on looking at you with unabashed curiosity...
I look and try to realise your beauty within me...
Try...to become a woman, by bent of mind...
Effeminate!

You...the peacock-
Maketh me one...
In my bewildered state...

You...the fancy...
'Cheats so well...'
And God knows-
I love to be cheated!
I love...so well...to be forfeited of my senses...by you...
And I the man, become a woman...temporary...
You ...fancy...you're just a cheat!

knowledge comes coupled... with ignorance...

Knowledge comes intertwined
With ignorance...
Sometimes...

I don't know what you did last summer...
I just don't know...
I don't know where you actually stand after walking so many miles...
I just don't have that precise knowledge...
But as the earth revolves...
And rotates...
I know...
We'll meet...someday...
In some foreign land with a big blue ocean by your side...
And a desert by me...
I don't know...
When...we'll meet...at exact what hour...or at what exact moment...
I just don't know...
I just don't know...dear...

regrets...

Regrets...
That I gave you pains
Regrets...
You gave me pains too!
Regrets...
You shooed away all the goodness that came from me, inter fused with insults and injuries, for sure!
Regrets...
You hinged all of you on my tiny fulcrum which screeched like a rusty thing...too rusty...
Regrets...
That I dipped my pen and wrote and dipped and wrote...not minding how the process emptied gradually the inkpot!
Regrets...
I spent you...
And you spent me up...
Regrets...
You can't let go of past...
And I can't live in future...
Regrets...
I drank tears
And You didn't drink wine!

virtual coexistence...

We co-exist, don't we?
Though, you live at a place near the salty sea-
Far away from my town...

If my hometown has krishnachura and radhachura painting the streets red and yellow in spring...
And sheuli blossoms...strewn all over the green grassy lands like white cotton flakes in autumn...
And smell of chatim filling up the dense air of winter like perfume spray...

Your town has the coconut leaves falling off everyday...
And salt salt sand sand air!
You live with them...
As I live with mine!
Still we coexist..
Aren't we?

I know...
you know the same...
So when I see you at your living, arranging the white lilies in the copper-pot, following a particular ikebana pattern...
You see me also...watching those flowers shiny and spreading grace to your living room and to you!
I know...
You know the same...

Last night...
I bet you saw me throwing that cigarette end out of my window...
You saw it...didn't you? the projectile of my fag-end losing energy and falling on my neighbor's roof?
You got irritated for sure then! seeing me doing school-kid stuff!
But dear...
At that point of time why you kept your sash-bahu soap on?
I mean... if you are really enjoying watching me doing things like that, why keep that television burning energy?

Don't do that...
I assure you-
Next time around, when I'll throw that fag-end, I would be bettering my aim...it would never fall on my neighbor's roof!

So...
We live...
We coexist...virtually though!

surely! you've left me a legacy...of Love!

You left me a legacy...
Really...
A legacy of images
Of dreams...
Of memories...

And I am just holding on to that legacy...
Of your rich and sublime presence-
That evoked so many and varied burst of passions...

I bear that image of yours-
Working at my kitchen...
Wearing that yellow cotton saree with light green borders...
Your rear-view from my study...
Your long braided hair dancing at your back as you move so restlessly with ladles and spoons and dishes...at my kitchen...sweating and working and singing a song of love...

Then another appears...
Another image bearing your legacy to me...
Of you putting my soiled jeans into that white chamber of washing machine and setting the knobs with perfect elan...
knowing exactly what should be the spinning time and what amount of detergent would my soiled jeans take...
And curiously as you did all that...cleaning and washing...you murmured your womanly chit-chats...as if you were wondering 'what particular muddy field he had tottered about...'

Then another appears...
Another image of your legacy of love and affection...
When I recall how you used to take away that empty coffee mug from my table and replace it with a filled-up one!
How...through your every moment of staying with an idiot like me...
You left me more and more dependent on you!

Surely!
You had left a long legacy of Love...
Love dripping still like water drops from a tap that had been closed tight!
A leaky water spout...leaving drops of love...

pink pullover...

The other day I saw the pink pullover
Paired with blue jeans
Standing at my door!

The hours of the day were early...
And the sun was just kissing  the earth, lending his warmth...
The pink pullover and blue jeans arrived unheralded!
I was not prepared for the sudden visit...
'You? here? so early?'
I asked...
Looking at her shiny face...moisturizer-ed...
And her thin lips carrying the smell of strawberries...

'If you call...how can I stay back?'
She replied ...sweet...
'Sure...sure...but I gave you a call...the day before yesterday...'
I mumbled;
'Yes...I know...I'm late...but will you not forgive me?'
She asked...
I looked at her shiny face
The dewdrops on her eyelashes shone like jewels...
And her face had that pinkish glow...
I at once forgot all causes of pains and agonies...
I chose to forget all causes of estrangement...
The pink pullover and the strawberries done me in...

God and His protege

God...
Serving for all
Down the ages...
Took a break...
But left the world to His protege...
A young man with a heart of gold...

This young man was delighted by the task assigned to him by no other than God...
He took the helm of affairs with an element of surprise...
But within moments
He was approached by a beauty...
She requested:
'Hey...young man...now that you're God...please let me live another day...for the earlier God had limited my stay to this day only...'
The young man was softened by the mellowed voice of the beauty...
And thought of listening to her story...so he asked:
'What have you done?'
'I sinned...I cursed the earlier God for He took away pride...He took away my Mirror!'
The young protege of God thought that the God might have been too harsh on the beauty...
So he extended her stay by oneday and smiled...
The beauty smiled back and even kissed the young God's feet...
The young protege of God was amused...
He felt a kind of shiver...unknown...

The God Himself...
The Omniscient...
returned soon after the break...
And He smiled at His protege when the young man asked Him about his role for the brief period as God...
The protege insisted on an appraisal from the Almighty...
Then...
He...the omniscient replied:
'Well...you did well...really fared well...only your sensory perceptions are yet to be numbed...you are yet to become God...'

'Why?'

So...
You've taken the crudest path to apparent triumph!
Probably you wanted to be that danish warrior
Who took the bid...and became a true victor!

But dear...
Knowing that you are incapable of listening to me...now...that you traversed the long road...
And met your destined horizon...
Still...
My god!
Why?
and
Why?
and
why?
and innumerable 'wh' questions play...
Between you and me...

You traveled  through your path...and you got every reason to be on that path...
I am not in any way posing a road-block...
I am not by any means slowing you down...
Only...
Only there remains a query...
A single one...
A singular kind...
'Why?'

a view of a room...(a narrative)

'My god!
The room is so beautiful!'
I exclaimed within, trying to be at ease with my amazement and bedazzled state
Entering her room...
So perfectly decorated...
She ushered me in and opened the big glass casements (for me?)
The rising sun rushed  into the room (for us two?)
Through the white curtains hanging like some princess' flowing gown...
The bedstead was neat ...white bed spread...white pillows soft and silky!(for he and she?)
The bed side table had two books...(one by me! My God!)
The ottoman was there too! big! cushioned to rest any tired soul( for he or she or me?)
The glass cabinet had exotic bottles...(Perrier-Jouët!Chardonnay!Pinot Noir!Cuvee!...all french! for both of them? for guests like me?)
I was stirred and shaken...both...by the view of her(their?) room...

She understood my discomfort...my unease...knowing me for years...
So...she just hang loose around me,keeping a curious kind of smile on her thin lips...
'Hey! make no mistake! I'm really kind of flustered...if you see what I mean...'
I murmured...not trying to hide my ill-at-ease state;
She giggled...
She giggled like a child, as if she had not yet grown into a woman proper!
'Why are you laughing? at me?'
I asked, irritated somewhat...
She still giggled...
'Look...as you asked me to come...so here I am...but where's your partner?'
I asked, looking around (as if I am to find him hiding somewhere in the room! me the idiot! curse me!)
She stopped giggling...looked at me...
'Sit...' She said...(as if she was ordering me! so easily!)
'No! I mean...I need to go...I need to attend some other works...you see...'
I protested;

'Okay...go...'
She said, nodding...(what a woman! come'n! ask me to stay dear!)
I looked at her...(me... the idiot!)
'Okay...bye bye then...take care...'
I said and started walking out of her room...
'Wait a minute...'( so? now you're calling me from behind? good!)
She said;
I stopped...
(God knows I was always willing actually, to stop and stay for a while....)

'Take your novella...its useless!'
She remarked, handing me a copy of my first published work...
I stood like a statue...
The book fell from my hand...
On the white marble...
Somewhere a cuckoo cooed...
Somewhere a linnet sang...
Somewhere a violinist played a tune of mourning as well...

stresses and strains...

She came to me oneday morn...
Her hair was not combed, unusual, very unlikely of the lady who loves to be neat...perfectionist...
'Hi dear! you look kind of disheveled this beautiful morn...'
I remarked, thinking of a session of banter and fun...
But she looked distressed...severely distressed as if the whole world had fallen down somewhere and she was part of the Fall...
She upturned her upper lip which looked beautiful still...sans lipgloss...
She furrowed her brows...which looked like the bow beautiful...though not marked or lined by the eye-brow pencil black!
She fumbled for words...though I knew exactly that her face carried a wordless cry...
'I ...I... lost my all hopes...I'm ruined dear!'
She cried out suddenly...as if a tumult had left her into a wreckage...
'what happened?'
I asked...looking at her salty eyes...still dark as the black night...still shining...with a different kind of passion...perhaps...
She looked at me...a plain look...however...it had deep pathos...pathos never to be revealed...pains only to be understood...unspoken though...
I always knew she was an introvert...
I knew that she loved me once...
I knew she deviated because of me...
I knew I was the cause...
So...I sat still...looking at her eyes...deep...pained...teary...
She was trying to surrender but how could she?
I declined her once...she could never let go that...
She shouldn't!

I decided to jabber...then...just jabber away her stresses and strains...
'Look...dear...life is a liquid and we are just like wires dipped into it...If you try to pull your thin wirelike existence out of life-liquid...tensile forces will surely be at work...don't force yourself...just let it happen...feel the dual pulls...the surface tension of the liquid-life and the surface energy...be good...cry hard...shout harder...let it go...don't suppress...'

She looked at me...
Her eyes were fixed, but her lips were trembling...
She was going to cry...
I moved a bit forward...
Gave her my shoulder...
She caught me like a straw...drowning...in the flood that broke...

love-bugged...

'Bitten by love...dear...
I got wings...so I must fly...'
He said, reclining on the sofa, putting his left leg on the arm rest...
And the right on the mat...
Me...his friend...looked at his posture and the sweet smile on his lips...
'God! she had turned you into a poet...almost!'
I exclaimed...with a bit of sarcasm unrevealed...under my tone and tempo...
He did not mind...
He was flying...
He...was love-bugged...
So he kept staring at the ceiling...
And I bet...
He was thinking of her...
'Hey! you!'
I tried to bring him back to the wingless world...real...harsh...stony...
'Yes...'
He replied in reluctant manner...bitten he was...by that Bug that had a long history of instilling frenzy...
I remembered Romeo...
I remembered Majnu...
I remembered Othello...
And even Stephen...
And so many of them...
'Hey! what's her name?'
I asked him...
'Don't know...'
He answered in a same lethargic tone...
'You're an idiot! don't know her name even? don't know her name whom you love?'
I asked, amused by his bugged stature...
'no...she could be anyone ...Aphrodite...Venus...Laila...Juliet...'
He, my love-bitten friend replied...still lying on the sofa in a precarious manner...
'Darn! you're an idiot! How can you love her without knowing her name?'
I asked, sort of irritation working up in me...
'I have no need dear...I have no need to know her name...I care not about her name...her father's name...her family's history...her gene codes...her blood group...all I care...is that her eyes spoke to me...
Yes...her eyes...they told me her love...they told me all about her passion for me...her presence...mere presence...made my day...and that is all about it...that is all one should really care for!'
My love-bugged friend replied with a sudden rise of tone...as if he was getting theatrical a bit...
I said nothing in response...
I just looked at his lit-up face...his throbbing veins on his temple...
His reddened ears...his inflated nose...
And I knew...
Then and there...
The disaster had already taken place...
The quake had already happened...
All these are aftermath...