That is what a granny is

Little Suprotik had been to his granny after a long time. His dad had dropped him there before going to office. Rupali had packed in his bag a packet of chocochips and muffins.
'Give them to granny and tell her to come to us, if possible, this weekend'
Rupali had told him.
'I will mom, don't you worry!'
Suprotik had said.

Granny was waiting for him at the porch. On her recliner, she was sitting when Devarghya dropped him.

'O my heart's joy! Come to me child!'
Granny took him to her arms, the moment he climbed up to the porch.
Suprotik after a long time got that familiar smell of granny, her betel leaf smell mixed with smell of turmeric, cinnamon and vegetables.
'Take these, mom sent'em for you'
Suprotik handed granny the packets of chocochips and muffins.

'Ma, I will take him on my way back home...'
Devarghya had said.
'O...will you not stay for awhile and have brunch with us?'
Granny asked.
'No ma, I got works...'
Devarghya smiled.
'Couldn't Rupu come?'
'No, ma, she got works too, you know...'

'O yes... I tend to forget...'
Granny nodded her head.
'Come child...'

Soon granny took Suprotik to her kitchen.
Granny's kitchen always kept Suprotik full of wonders.
Entering it he was at once gripped with aroma of spices. There was no kitchenette , no chimney, no water purifier,no cabinets. But there was that grand chulla of a kind. It was run on wood and charcoal.
The rotis made there always had that peculiar smell of charcoal.
And those grilled mushroom and paneer cubes.

Suprotik delved into the plate given to him by granny. A simple chinaware, no fancy stuff, but he noted every time he would come to granny's , she would serve him on that particular plate.
'Why do you serve me on this plate, every time, granny?'
Suprotik had asked.
'Cause your dad used to have his food from this one...'
Granny said.

Post lunch, granny took him to her garden.
A beauty of a garden it was!
The bunches of marigolds and roses and chrysanthemums greeted Suprotik at once with their trembling petals.
'Want to take any?'
Granny asked.
Suprotik looked at granny's face.
She looked so beautiful in her white saree with thin embroidered border. Her face was resplendent. She looked like an angel almost.
'Okay... As you wish...'
Granny picked up few marigolds and roses, tied them with a twine and gave them to him.
Suprotik took a deep smell.
'They are so beautiful...'
'Nothing like you dear!'
Granny gave a mild pinch to his cheek.
'Why don't you go and stay with us, gran?'
Suprotik asked.
'If I go, who will take care of my garden?'

'But then you said there is nothing like me?'
Suprotik asked back.

Granny signaled Suprotik to sit down on her lap.
'Want to listen to a story?'

'Yay!'
Suprotik clapped.

'Once there lived a tree who wanted to be the most worthy. He prayed to God. Despite his prayers the woodcutters came and chopped him off. The tree thought he was unworthy. But still he prayed. The log was kept for weathering for few months. Then one day, a carpenter came and turned the wood into a beautiful box. That box was sold to a poor couple. The couple put all their dirty linen in the box. But after some months when they were blessed with a child, they cleaned the box and put him there. Then the tree realised God's benediction. So see, all the trees that I had planted here, are for my God, whom I worship. So I can't leave them. And you know who my God is?'
Granny asked.
Suprotik, who was listening to the story with rapt attention, couldn't at once answer granny's query.

'It is you...for you bring me all the hope to work for...I take care of this house, this garden, only with the hope that you will come...'

Granny had said.

'Okay, I promise to come to you...every week...'

'That's great!'
Granny had said.

Late in the afternoon, Devarghya came to take Suprotik.
Granny gave him the bunch of flowers and a jar of pickles.
'You can have the pickles all the year round...'

While he was returning home, through the window the slanted rays of the setting sun with its own superb spring time hue were caressing the face of little Suprotik.
He was holding on to the bunch of flowers tied by a twine.
'I would love to be at granny's every weekend!'
He suddenly demanded.
'Why? For those flowers? Or stories?'
Devarghya asked.
'For both!'

A vivid waiting

'Such a mist filled dew laden morn...'
Paromita thought as she went out.
She got works to do today. The interior design assignment was to be fed into the computer today. She had meticulously drawn every detail of the office space, how would the lobby look, where the silver pots with indoor plants would be placed, which paintings and pictures would be hung at which walls, how would the cubicles be arranged. Only she had not found a suitable art work that was to be purportedly displayed at centre of the lobby. It had to be something extraordinarily beautiful yet not very much startling, something subtle yet conspicuous.
'A hard find...'
Paromita thought.
Near the triangular traffic crossing, where the car stopped at the signal, she noticed school children waiting for their bus. They were dressed in pullovers of different colors- red, pink, yellow, orange, violet which made them look like a bunch of blossoms, vibrant and stark in the mist.
The digital clock at the signal showed thirty seconds' time of waiting.
Thirty seconds seemed really long.
Paromita had to reach office as quickly as she could. The client would be there soon.
And the art work at the lobby would have to be finalised, drawn and put into the Software aided design.
But this traffic signal stop.
Twenty five seconds it showed still to go.
A vivid waiting.
Paromita peered out a little. The air had the moisture.
It was dewy.
The hydrant near the bus stop was spraying water.
The bunch of school children were giggling. They were waving at the passing vehicles. The standing vehicles, like Paromita's were also getting their attention. Free and uninhibited as they were like a morning of a day.
A known tune of Rabindra sangeet was being played at the signal stop.
Suddenly Paromita remembered she had never tried shooting any photo using her newly acquired smartphone. She bought it recently only going by its manufacturer's advert claiming high resolution camera and superior lens.
She brought out the phone.
The signal would keep her and others waiting for another ten seconds, probably.
Paromita pointed at the busstop. Some of the children were hopping, some were hanging from the iron railings.
A happy bunch of blossoms almost.
A misty dewy morn.
A month of love.
Paromita took the snap.
She thought she would install a busstop, school children, blooming trees, water jet and railings at the centre of the lobby.
It wouldn't be out of place.
After all life at a lobby is always a 'waiting for something,' and is there any better waiting than waiting for the school bus or the waiting of the blossoms for their turn of perfect blooming?

Love, have i ever told you

Love, have I ever told you
How much I love you?
How much I had worked
Days nights and evenings
As they passed through me
Like beautiful waves of the sea,
How much I prayed for your words
Words which come only to move me forward
Words which could make me paint pictures
Words which can evoke the scriptures,
Words which can make me a short story
Words which can make me kneel at your glory,

Love, have I ever told you
how much I love you,
Love that can help me to withstand
The gales, the storms, the flood and sands,
Love that can make me love the self and all
Love that can make leaves to sprout in spring
Love that in late autumn misty sunshine brings,
Love that is true to all cuts and gores
Love that takes me after a voyage ashore
Love that is for a bud as potent
As it holds true for the remainder and the quotient,
Love that is fictional full of colors of mind
Love that is poetic all encompassing kind,

Love, have I ever told you
How much I love you?

Valentinus, Julia and the almond tree

'Nay!'
Said Valentinus,
'How can I forego what the Lord hath me asked?
How can I worship by your dictates?
How can I forget His psalms and bless?'

Hearing this the Roman King
Asked his men to before him bring
That obstinate kind hearted man
'You would be sent to gallows!'
Threatened Claudius, munching marshmallows,

And so Valentinus took his berth
In the dingy cell the darkest on earth
And there one day by some providence turned
Came Julia who wanted to learn
How the world was created, and what is man
What is the essence of being in a sacred land,
Who made the universe to follow its patterns
Which rule governs the light to turn,
Why are we here and what is life?
Why there is happiness and also strife?'

Valentinus hearing all these queries
Told Julia to find the field of berries
Within her and nowhere else
And then it is said, she got the trace
Of how light could even happen in the dark
Of how could within one , one find a spark
Of something so holy so full of peace
That Julia cried and the prison's soil she kissed,

Many years after Valentinus went to space
a pink blossomed almond tree Juila did place
At the gate of the cell with all her Love,

And it is said there grew a nest of doves.

Sonali's peepul tree

Sonali stopped the car just where that peepul tree stood. The morning had that happy breeze flowing through the meadows in which the tree stood like a statue. Sonali got down from the car. She had driven some forty five kilometres to reach that spot. She thought it was the only thing she could do for Arko.
The breeze made its way through her hair. The horizon now being lit by the glow of the sun, looked like a painting, crimson yellow. Sonali knew Arko would never return running through the meadows as he used to do.

Being at the outskirts of the city, from here, Sonali could see the towering things reaching out to the vast sky, like bar code blocks. Sonali looked at the Peepul tree. It had grown taller and a bit thicker. As she stood near the tree, she felt its lucid presence. She felt how it had remained as the lone witness to her rendezvous.
She thought she would never miss Arko.

The Peepul tree would not let her miss him.

A piece of silk,

Parineeta at first couldn't make out
What that elderly woman said to her,in a language alien.
It sounded like a mixture of Hindi and Nepali and she being definitely a 'bong' with working knowledge in Hindi, English and a bit of Bengali, was at a confounded state.
'What is she saying?'
She asked the teenaged girl who stood by the woman,at the shop at the market. The girl with marks of frostbites on her face, smiled.
'She's my granny...and she says that she wants to gift you a piece of cloth...'
'But why? Why dear?'
Parineeta asked, amused as she was.
The girl asked her granny something, in their own dialect. The granny smacked her own forehead twice and blurted something out.
Parineeta stood, waiting to know with suppressed eagerness, what transpired between the elderly woman and her granddaughter.
The girl smiled at her.
'What?'
Parineeta was getting impatient.
'Well she claims that she knows you by heart, for she had taken care of you, nursed you, nurtured you, like a big tree takes care of a little one... She had been your nanny. She knew your mother. She was by her side after she gave birth to you. Then your father, mother and you moved away. Your father got a posting to another place... But you see, now that you've come again to our place, on your sojourn, and the Lord had made a plan to make you meet her, she recognised you, even after so many years...'

The girl took a heave of a breath, saying all these at one go. She seemed to be elated , as if she knew Parineeta too!

Parineeta was dumbstruck.
She thought she heard a flute somewhere being played. It might be a local boy  playing it. The tune suddenly appeared very much known to Parineeta. Suddenly the place appeared to be so well known. She felt the gentle murmur of leaves, she felt the air of spring in her heart.
The world it seemed so beautiful.

'Where's that piece of cloth?'
Parineeta asked.
The elderly woman brought out a silk garment. It had the color of leaves and pollen grains.
Parineeta took it in her trembling hands.
She kissed the old woman's wrinkled cheeks.
'But how can I take it, without paying you ?'
Parineeta asked, tears choking her words almost.
'You can never pay for it...can you?'
The teenaged girl asked her.
'No! Dear me! I never can!'
Parineeta said, and smiled as she held both the elderly woman and her granddaughter in her warm embrace.

Almost like a day of spring

Heard a song of cuckoo,
Somewhere perched,
And the mild yellow hue
On the grassland, just beside an avenue
Struck me beautiful,
Almost like day of spring,

Seeing young hearts
Walking hands in hands,
Buying bunches of roses,
And garlands of marigold,

Thought it was surely
A day of a spring,

And I thought of you,
Your growing into a saree,
your first time blush, before me,

Your throwing flowers
At the feet of the deity,
And a few petals
Just on my shoulders,

Like your flippant writings
On scraps of paper,

I thought
It was all part of me,

On a day of spring
Just like today.

If thou be that swan

if thou be that swan,
who hath flown over
deserts, mountains,
and acres of lands,

make me your words,
and tell me to write
music as bright
as the one which
can only preach
peace, love and
benevolence,

And I know
It can never be so
For a mortal like me,
Ever a thing easy,

but then
only a poet
can claim
immortality,

for even if he dies
his words will fly,

if thou be that swan
make me a song,
a song that can fill

hearts with air,
veins with blood,
souls with Love.

just like Ithaca

You would say whether I had been
to Ithaca, and if so whether I lived enchanted
Seeing it so humble and so green,
As did Ulysses perhaps upon arriving
to that place of Odyssey,

I would say it had been always so,
I had lived with you
and I found Homer too,
in your eyes.

from Kashmir,

A friend of mine
coming back from Kashmir,
thought to narrate the story of a poet,
who was born there and there bred,
who had seen the guns and the bayonets
from his attic where he hid
to help himself and others bid
farewell to noises of rattling steel,

there as he told, he read Anne Frank,
there as he told, he drew petals on plank
of wood, dried by the sun which rose,
there, as he told, he his God chose,
drew his garden of Hope,
and declared if there was something to cherish,
it was only his Love for those who had perished,
and that gave his garden all the moisture,
and that gave his garden all the flowers,
and when the buds bloomed,
he wrote he had been at their hearts.

for a bud,

once he spoke of his story,
an unfinished one,
it got a song of its own,
a song so full of pathos
that it could make a dove even
to seat for a while by his side,
and to weep for him,

it had a song of unmitigated suffering,
and the dove,
being drenched by his forbidden tears
wept too,

and that weeping,
being stored in oyester shells,
turned into pearls,
for that weeping
was straight from heart,
no glycerine,
no makeup.

a mere graffiti, Che

As I stood infront of the huge graffiti,

I thought of him,
and a poem,
a Sunil Ganguly,

'your death makes me guilty'
it said,
and it also said how we are getting away,
getting really
a w a y,

and then some would say,
It sounds like a cat,

and then some would say
where we have left our mats,

but then,
there was only one Che,

and only one Sunil.

(the picture attached is a graffiti pasted in the Bolivian Pavilion, Kolkata International Book Fair,2016)

Siberian Crane

Every year when the winter wanes
she comes to me, a snowy Crane,
she tells me how far has she flown,
from Siberia, straight to my town,
in her wings she carries shiny flakes
of poems written by her owner, a lake;

Every year when the winter wanes
she comes to me, a snowy Crane,
she tells me what she has done all those days,
how she has brought twigs to build her lays,
where from she's got that beauty of a mind,
how she for warmth longed and pined,

Every year when the winter wanes,
I find by my window a beauty of a Crane,
she tells me so many stories of her flight,
how she flew by the days and the nights,
how she got kissed by the sun's first rays,
how the cloud fairies kept her amazed,

Every year when the winter is about to go
and the spring is just to begin her show,
I think I find another reason to write
for that bird, her journeys, her visions and sights.

song for a traveler

only it was the other day
met a traveler from far away
he said he had walked a thousand miles
he said he thought of planting smiles
amidst the ruins of Mohenjodaro,
he said he saw twittering sparrows
he said he saw sanguine Palestine,
he said he uprooted covert landmines,
he claimed he found beauty like that truth
which in corn fields once sang one Ruth,

then he talked of that kind of Love
that could be found in the quiet of a cove,
he said he lazed by the trees and the sands
he said he found greenery in bloodsoaked lands,

it was only the other day
met a traveler from far away.

New Year's Eve

New year's Eve has come again

like it had come to my lane

every year with its beauty and grace

New year's Eve is another dress,

the chill in the air is like a song

it sings for me only happiness

yes, I know there's sadness around

but how can I forget Your bless?

it was You who told me soft

life is just a choice one makes

and now that I have chosen to write

make me wear Your snowy flakes,

I would be then that grand old man

and would sing a song for you

you would sit beside the fireplace

and tell me your worldly view,

how you struggled with your life

how it hurt when you lost your way

how once you thought of taking a dive

into the dark , from a long long quay,

then you would tell me about your love

Love that shone like a star lit sky

and you would tell me how with doves

you chose to bid your nights goodbye,

I would then talk about mine,

a traveler with only the wish to write

I would tell you how Auld Lang Syne 

gave me oft those fanciful flights,

I would sing for you and all

I would sing the New Year's Eve

you would say then 'we are blessed'

and I would say 'come, let's live'.

vignettes of winter

winter has its own vignettes,
pickle jars and pigeons on terrace,

badminton courts, racquets,
pullovers, quilts and jackets,

cartwheels, bakery, yeast,
people having a grand feast,

son et luminere, Dominique,
festival of flicks, bearded critic,

fairs, handloom and crafts,
Samuel Beckett and Jean Paul Sarte,

cakes, toffees, regatta, jazz,
a session of poetry, Octavio Paz,

conclaves, picnics, Jacobean lit,
misty mornings, sparrows on streets,

dews on glasses, on lawns, windshields,
mild nip in the air and lemon peels,

freckled skin, dry and withered leaves,
moisturizers and northern breeze.

literary beings,

if you implore I can talk
not of that kind of love,
where we would become streets and lanes,
crossing each other like a tedious argument,
instead let me recite that love song
where tears of human race belong,
and human happiness too -
in finding Galapagos island;

and you will refer to Lazarus,
as your source of inspiration,
someone who can turn you to Epiphany,
you will talk of that occurance at Bethany,

from there you would begin perhaps
your writing of a poetic fiction, a verse,
you would say that was all you wanted to write,
you would talk of sobs that made watermarks on your pillow,
and I would say, people just come and go,
you would ask if they were like Michelangelo;

then there would be a pause,
you would try to find a cause,
and put it into a way to make
your statement of saying nothing,
your dearest possession, a stream,
that had rolled down the hills
and mountains to the plains,
your lyrical offering, to all who disdain
kindness and human oaths,
you would sing, love in your throat,
for all,making no discrimination,
you would become a boat,
and sail away guided by the flow,
you would just away go,

and I would say
people just come and go,
and you will ask
if they were Michelangelo;

I would talk of Prometheus,
and John Lennon and Beatles,
and would place flowers in bulletholes
as my tribute to friends, and to those
who had learnt to fight till the end,
risking death every moment,

you would ask if I have of late
grown a liking to any poet,

my answer would be an affirmation,

'Eliot, Donne, Browning, Tagore?'

'That could be a lethal combination'

'what's that then? who that could be?'

'no one, as such, between you and me'

from there we would turn to words,
from there we would become humanists,
you would talk of Renaissance, Yeats,
I would of paintings on the streets.

Dubliners, a leitmotif

                    I

It would have been perhaps
that part of a dusk
taken like a leaf out
from that vivid 'Dubliners',

                    II

there were no memoirs Irish
no forms of imperial gossip,
eastern guards they were not there,

                    III

only it seemed as it were
to say something
for some people to hear,
and for someone to let out
all that were kept like doubts,

                    IV

a lot can happen over talks,
wars, and our pieces too
broken and missed up cues,
bread, spinach green,
cold coffee , strawberry cream,

                         V

everything just over talks,
talks peppered with mustard sauce,
and forks resting beside knives,
cutlery exotic, plastic swipes,

                          VI

and then posters hanging on the wall
Stephen there about to weep for a girl,
a little flower claiming possibility
in crystal vase, stored for antiquity,

                          VII

have they all become metropolitan?
smart, clicking heels, stamping boots,
crumpled scrolls of unspoken truth,

                          VIII
Stephen remembered the poem recited
by his uncle in a drunken state,
to his aunt about something patriotic,
love for the land, in a tone charismatic,

                    
                            IX

the wheels moved at slumbering pace
passing posts making misty trace
on window firmly shuttered down,
it was a faraway town,

                             X

the sound of florins on the floor
making jingling noise broke the stupor,
'Dubliners' there on the table kept,
turned into a motif leit.

('Dubliners' is a collection of short stories by James Joyce, )

                           

the family photograph

'say cheese!' the man behind the lens
asked the assembly to flash grins,
and all of them did so in the sense
they tried their respective best,

the grandpa in the middle had no teeth
so he flashed his gums vacant and still,
granny beside him took a breath
and so her face looked a bit grave,

and the eldest son having arthritis
shook his right knee by his hand to ease
the standing posture,his wife beside him
was thinking about the chilli paste left
in the sink, her face had that hurried look,

their son back from college had a book
in his hand which he was not willing to keep
anywhere lest his younger sis would take a leap
for it and would take it away with her to Jersey,

the second eldest son, still a bachelor,a musician
was probably thinking the middle portion
of a song which he downloaded courtesy
the electronic device that he possessed recently,
so his face looked composed and calm,

just beside him his niece returning from Greece,
held an artefact resembling a bow with strings,
she insisted to pose with that for it would bring
a touch of verisimilitude to the snapshot,
personification of a tourist with a spot,

her brother, the youngest in the scene,
was sandwiched between his mother and aunt,
looking pacified after crying over a bottle of jam,
he held a toy of a gun in his palm,

his uncle, the husband of aunt had a band
in his arm expressing solidarity with those
killed and wounded somewhere in a Pacific coast,

the aunt from Hazaribagh on a visit
squeezed her not so slim figure into the frame,
she,  having the taste definitive a bit
held a paperback with a flashy name,

her only daughter with a habit of dozing off
anywhere anytime if kept idle,
almost to a quick nap momentarily dropped
leaning her head on her mother's lap,

grandpa's butler cum masseur cum errand man
was the lone figure sitting on the ground and ,
he held the pipe of the hookah perfunctorily-
not to smoke but to indicate his glee
in keeping everything grandpa owned
as part of his little acclaimed luxury,

at the far right sat the family's pride
the big furry alsatian, after a Persian
monarch named, who tried to hide
the bone he stole from kitchen,
not so long since then,

all these to put flippantly
made the portrait of the family.

remnants

'The last time we came to the place
they with curd and pickles us served
at the end ,when we're about to close
our little talks with a lot of faith,'
Sweta while chewing a cardamom seed, said,

'The last time an afternoon it was
the road outside had fewer cars
and sitting beside the glass wall
we had had our moments just,'
Ornob recalled,somewhat lugubrious,

Tomorrow would be the end
of the vacation and they would be
to their own respective worlds sent,
Sweta would be busy with her works
And Ornob too would forget the talks,

'what would remain between us?'
Sweta suddenly asked
breaking the beauty of the pause
that kept the two in succulent thoughts,

'all these perhaps, like postcards,
or sildes neatly preserved,'
Ornob replied, fully convinced
of how memory works, what it stores,
what it connotes, what it means,

'ah! that's like we are then
two persons in a memory lane...'
Sweta heaved a half sigh
the other half not expressed,
Ornob just smiled, keeping things unsaid,

'you got nothing to say?
now that we would go each other's way
you would take the route to south
and I would to some western port go
where would I sit by that beautiful Seine
and throw the keys of our very own lane
into the water that bore all the pains
and happiness of people like us
who had spent nights by counting stars
and days who measured in dimes and farce?'
Sweta asked Ornob or was it really
for him to answer such a query?

Perhaps not, for Sweta looked at him
and asked if they could go a few yards, walking,

'The last walk together?' Ornob joked,

'no, for I am not that much haughty
like that mistress in that monologue'

'yes, and we are always in some sort
of a conversation, I mean, dialogue'

the two laughed as they started the walk,
it was invariably the full moon night,
late evening, the last week of a spring;

'how many years have passed
Sweta asked, 'since we've met?'

'since Seth wrote that Golden Gate?'
Ornob chuckled, smile on his lips
'you're such such....' Sweta fumbled for words,
'moron' 'that's the word for me to keep'
He added to make her more equipped,

She laughed heartily, 'as you yourself talked of Golden Gate,
I think you're very much like man in there, bred,
who swore by the Beatles and Pink Floyd
and noted how trees become in autumn void,'

'you make excellent observations
only that those are beyond my station,
now that we are walking the last of its kind
why not we say something more refined?'

'what tell me, are the refined things?
literary escapes or drinking binge?
what is that ,that can be called the best
who are the plebeians and who are the blessed?'

'tell me something about Seine
how it flows, in your veins?
what people do there on holidays?
do fishermen sail their boats like here on Ganges?'

'people sit on the benches there
and talk about Cognac and Baudelaire
and those who are too much of a believer
they throw silver keys right into the river,
and there is also a flea market near
people throng to buy cheap saucepans there
sometimes they buy hairpins too
with which they tie their lost billetdoux...'

'and what there do you care to do?'

'I just go there and sit with ease
and try to catch the ballads in the breeze
sung by urchins who collect coins in hats-
their tones running sharp and falling flat,
I listen to the stories as they sing
of maidens poor marrying kings
and of men dressed up like harlequins
creating comedy in postwar ruins...'

'what a way you pass your day
by the Seine as you please you may...'
Ornob said as they came to the point
from where they were to part their ways,

'see you' Sweta said before boarding a bus,
they were at the big terminus,
Ornob nodded and waved at her
and smiled thinking how soon
they would be away from each other,

'what would remain?' thought he
while the bus took Sweta away
just like another slide of a perfect memory.