অনেক সুখস্মৃতির ভিড়ে
হারিয়ে যাওয়া ছবির মাঝে
হঠাৎ  তোর সিল্হূ্ট পেলাম
এক পুরোনো বইয়ের ভাঁজে,
তোর চুলের গন্ধ পেলাম
কাঠগোলাপের ভোর
এক মুখ আকাশ পেলাম
রেশমী সুতোর ডোর,
অনেক ছবির মাঝে
হঠাৎ তোর সিল্হূট পেলাম
এক পুরোনো বইয়ের ভাঁজে।

When the dust settles down in the western front
And the evening slowly descends
I think I love to bask
In the city's antiquity,
Ahmedabad,
You have for ages lured people
Of all age and caste
To come to you,
And to be enthralled by your colored things,
Little trinkets and cholis,
And the sandstone red
Architectural marvels
Dating back to eleventh century
All telling your richness , your beauty ,

Now when I walk down your streets
How I am taken back to your aweinspiring wonders,

Right through your bosom
How runs the river
And how your eastern side with Pols and bazaars appears
As the flagbearer of your hoary tradition,
While on your west
Glitz and glamour shine
And highways run to meet the horizon.

চল্ হেঁটে যাই বিকেলের পথ
আদুরে আলোয় মাখা
দিনশেষে আরও একবার
তোর সাথে একা
গাছেদের কথা ফিস্ ফিস্
ঘাসের জলজ ঘ্রাণ
চল্ হেঁটে যাই আরও একবার
আদুরে আলোয় করি স্নান।

জোনাক আলোয় হোক খাক্
তোমার আমার রাত
তবু এসো রাত্রি বেশে
শুধু আমায় ভালোবেসে

ভেবেছিলাম একটা প্রেমের কবিতা লিখব।  বেশ আটপৌরে ।

লম্বা এক ঝুলবারান্দা আর তার ঠিক গা ঘেঁষে একটা ছিপছিপে তেঁতুল গাছ।  বারান্দায় উড়তে দেখা যাবে এক লাল টুকটুকে সোনালি  পাড়ের শাড়ি।  কোনো এক বসন্তের সকালে সেই বাড়ীর পরম আদরের মেয়ে বারান্দায় আসবে আনমনে গানের কলি গাইতে গাইতে। ওই বাড়ীরই একতলায় সেই অষ্টাদশী মেয়ের কাকার ঘর থেকে ভেসে আসবে আকাশবাণী কলকাতার প্রাত্যহিকী। মেয়েটি হঠাৎ ই দেখবে ঢোলা  পাজামা পান্জাবী পরিহিত এক যুবক চলেছে দ্রুত সাইকেল চালিয়ে রাস্তা দিয়ে। সকাল আট্টা আটের ট্রেন তার মানে এখনো যায়নি,ভাববে মেয়েটি।  আর নিজের মনেই বলবে ‘কবে যে একটু কায়দার পোষাক পরতে শিখবে বকুরাম’। বলেই সে মুখ ঘুরিয়ে বারান্দায় ঝোলানো দেওয়াল ঘড়ির দিকে তাকাবে আর বলবে ‘দুগ্গা দুগ্গা’।
ছেলেটিও একটিবারের জন্যে ওপরের দিকে তাকিয়ে চাপ বাড়াবে সাইকেলের প্যাডেলে।
‘আজ বিকেলে ফেরার সময় চৌরুঙ্গীর এম বিশ্বাস এ্যান্ড সিম্ফোনী থেকে এলপিটা কিনতে হবে। সেই এলপিটা যাতে আছে বড়ে গোলাম আলীর গান। ’ ছেলেটা ভাবতে ভাবতে পৌঁছোবে স্টেশনে।
‘ইস্ সেদিন রুম্পাদের বাড়ীতে কি সুন্দর গেয়েছিল বকুরাম। ’মেয়েটা ছেলেটির চলে যাওয়া অবয়ব দেখতে দেখতে ভাববে।
ছোট্ট শহরটায় বসন্তের সকাল তার শান্ত স্নিগ্ধ আলোর পশরা নিয়ে বসবে।

ভেবেছিলাম এমনই এক প্রেমের কবিতা লিখব।

জলে ভেজা জানালার কাঁচ
দেখছিল শ্রাবণের সাঁজ
ল্যাম্প পোস্টের হালকা আলোয়
বিন্দু জলের অল্প ছোঁয়াচ।

বৃষ্টি ভেজা দিনদুপুরে 

কার লাগে ভালো বল

ভাঙা ছাতা আর নিঝুম বাসস্টান্ড 

হাঁটুর কাছে জল,

বৃষ্টি ভেজা দিনদুপুরে

কার লাগে ভালো বল

রেলিং ঘেঁষে গোলাপ ভেজে

চোখের কোণে জল,

বৃষ্টি ভেজা দিনদুপুরে 

কার লাগে ভালো বল ।

চেস্টার ও হে
সেই ত গাইলে
ফাইনাল মাসকারে(ড)...

এর পর ত ‘বর্ষামঙ্গল’লিখে ফেল্বি”—বলেছিল সে। মুখ টিপে হেসে। সবে মাত্র  তাকে শুনিয়েছি এক শহুরে বর্ষামুখর গান। “তা নয় হল,কিন্তু তাতে কি বরষা আমার প্রেয়সী  হবে? তার কতো প্রেমিক তুই জানিস্? কত যুগ ধরে কত কবি গেয়ে গেল তার গান। কত আঁকিয়ে তুলির টানে তাকে সাজালো। আমি আর কি এমন। ” খানিক অভিমান নিয়ে বলেছিলাম। সে কি বুঝেছিল কে জানে।
“ওই দ্যাখ্!” বলে সে আমায় দেখিয়েছিল এক শ্রাবণ বিকেলের পশ্চিমাকাশ। এক পশ্লা বৃষ্টির পর অস্তগামী সূর্যের গোলাপী হলুদ গেরুয়া আভা যেন আঁকছিল এক রুপকথা। আর সেই রুপকথার খানিক ছোঁয়াচ  এসে পড়ছিল তার কপালে গালে চিবুকে। আমি আরেকবার ঝিরঝিরে রুপালী জলবিন্দু হতে চাইছিলাম ভীষণ। শুধু তার হয়ে থাকবো বলে। আমার বরষার।

A journey into the misty woods

When the day was so filled with calm
And when rain had finally  to the hills come,
Asked her to make a journey with me
Into the woods unknown moist and misty,

She haply agreed and nodded her head
To go with me through the road that bred
Half visible wonderous serene sights
Covered by translucent curtain white,

We heard the chirpings of cicadas true,
held on palms nascent drops of dew,
And as we our journey thus made
Through woods by mist so laid-

We thought we found us as if new
Given perhaps another birth long due
We thought we had a tryst with trees
Which held many myths and mysteries,

The songs of hills , the murmur of streams,
Finding God in pantheistic dreams,
All came and descended upon us
Through the woods of mist as we passed.

Standing before her

So many days have gone by
As months came and away did fly
Still every time if somehow I get a chance
To stand before her and have a glance
At her flowering state, her beauteous sight-
How am I filled with simple poetic light
And think of so many little things
That can easily happy memories bring
Like a day spent in listening to songs
Of autumn and spring and summer long
Like a night watching the canopy of sky
Starry , magical where dreams doth lie,

So many days have gone by
As months came and away did fly,
Still every time if by chance I stand
Before her and the green lushy land
How am I taken to a different plane
Of love and longing and poetic vein,
How am I reminded of simple little things
That only slideshow of memories bring-
A smile of beloved, a naughty look,
A drop of rain on a page of a book,
A whispering tone , soft cuddling up,
One winter to celebrate, a warm coffee cup,

So many days have gone by
As months came and away did fly.

It was pretty late in the evening
When the train chugged into the station,
Abhinav was then having his coffee
And watching how the rain and mist created a translucent curtain outside,
He thought he heard the gong of a grand clock announcing time,

Just then he noticed two figures
Drenched to skin, each other tightly
embracing,
It had been wonderous to witness
Such a poetically eloquent scene
Unfolding before his eyes,
Water dripping down the glass of the window made outside blurry,
But that slight indistinctiveness had its own expression -
An expression which could oft be found in slides of photos
Or in cinematic frames,
Abhinav was reminded of different allusions
Like passages he had read in novellas,
Like songs he had heard in his youth with earnest heart and keen ears,
Like paintings he had dreamt of conceiving,

He was reminded of a woman too,

A woman who had once made him to
Kneel right on a platform one rainy evening,
Right before her.

বৃষ্টির সাথে ভাব  না করে  উপায়  আছে ?একটু কথা  কাটাকাটি  হল কি হল না,অমনি সে জুড়বে কান্না , আর সে যদি একবার উল্টিয়ে ঠোঁট  ধরে মেঘমল্লার তাহলে আর দেখতে হবে না। বাড়ির উঠোন  ছাপিয়ে  তার কান্না পৌঁছোবে এক্কেবারে বাগানে। সেখানে  জল থই  থই ।  তারপর আম ,জাম,কাঁঠাল  গাছেদের কাছে নালিশ  শেষে সোজা রাজপথ ।  তারপর রাস্তা ধরে এপাড়া ওপাড়া ঘুরে শেষ মেষ নদীর সাথে দেখা করে সব রাগ  অভিমানের উপযুক্ত  বহিঃপ্রকাশ। বৃষ্টি আর  নদী ।  দুই মহাঅভিমানি মেয়ে। এদের যারা কাছ থেকে দেখেছে, হাজার ভয় সত্ত্বে ত্ত এদের ভালোবেসেছে। এক দুর্নিবার আকর্ষণে ছুটে গেছে ওদের কাছে। জলে ভিজে একাকার ।  জলের স্পর্শে কেঁপেছে। তবু জলকেই ভালোবেসেছে আর গেয়েছে প্রাণ ভরে বরষার গান। জলমগ্ন শহরে নৌকার  দাঁড় হাতে সেজেছে মাঝি। জলের ওপর আলোর ছবিআঁকা দৃশ্য তখন হয়েছে তার স্বপনের চাবিকাঠি যা দিয়ে সে দিয়েছে পাড়ি তার ভালোলাগার জগতে।বৃষ্টির সাথে ভাব না করে উপায় আছে?

Now that you are gone
I try to make a search
Of you in your works,
Your writings, diaries, scrapbooks,
Your memorabilia,
And how I find you more
As a product of that time turbulent,
When people had lesser earthly hankerings
And more of camaraderie,
When the air had all the fervour of revolution,
When eyes of you and your peers
Had all the dreams of liberation,
And hope ,
For those half fed, naked, starving humanity,

Ah, those were the times,
When you wrote on walls ,
Slogans and songs,

Till hurried steps of black boots
Came like hoofs of nightmare
Through sounds of gunshots
And mist,

Time that got changed too,
And when peace came
It had wreaths
Upon its breast,
Of doomed youth,

Now that I see those pictures,
Sepia , grey,
How I get carried away
To those times,

How can I get the smell
Of smoke, tar, tea,
How in blurry eyes
Your youthful vigour
Do I see.

Father

Writing something about you is like
Trying to make a swim through a sea,
Through wave after waves of memories,
The first distinct smell of you
Had the that peculiar mix of tobacco and shaving cream,
The first distinct touch of you had been to feel your palms a bit roughened,
And to feel how those lines on them had withered the ups and downs of time-
Partition, independence, state of political instability, carnage , emergency, flood of seventy eight , hartals, strikes, lockouts, bandhs,

Then your smile , never too loud,
Just a sweet candid one, 
And your angst - silence spreading over clouds of even more silence,

Your writing hand curved and sparkling
Your fountain pen dipped in ink - your poems and stories, your sessions of debates and discussions , Marx , Lenin, Engels, Tagore, Vivekananda, Aurobindu- all turning like lively figures standing before us as if saying their words,

Your recitation of poems ,
your acting at amateur theatre- glittering dresses, swords of tin,

And then ' Krishanu' and literary adda over cups of tea,
Mail posts arriving with your name printed  all the way from foreign shores,

You teaching me cycling one spring day
You cooking special dishes,
you drawing a beautiful sketch of a train passing through the curves of hills,
You taking us to evening show of a flick - shown for charity -  A Satyajit Ray masterpiece- an adaptation of Ibsen ,

Now as time has moved with its winged gait,
And as age has come and sat like a philosopher queen
Just betwixt us ,

How I just think of you
As a tree old
With stories written on its bark.

The leafless chinar

In the shade of chinar tree
Like two birds who had flown over a sea
The boy and the girl gathered quiet
Drenched softly by the fading twilight,
The girl coy and a bit terrified
By shrill buzz of gunshots bright
Whispered her fear and longing too
To her man, her hope, her beau,

'Don't you anymore join those men
Who are fighting for years and dying in vain'
The girl with tears in her hazel eyes
Pleaded to the boy with whom she has ties
Of love and hope and all those little things
Which amidst despair only joy to her bring,

'I know how much you are worried about me
But as long as there  is this chinar tree
We will come here every evening , dear,
Why those gunshots you falsely fear?'
The boy told the girl putting his palms on her cheek
As the evening slowly turned dark and bleak,

Suddenly they found some shadowy figures
Circled around them with fingers upon triggers
' Who are you? What are you here doing?
Don't you know there's a curfew this evening?'
A man from the group shouted in a voice gruff
His face looked poke marked and remorseless , tough,

The girl shuddered and was about to cry
The boy was thinking of  a fitting reply,
He searched for the pin under his vest
Unhooking which he could put all to rest,
' Run away , you, my dear, my life...'
Saying this he pushed the girl and made a dive
At the man who few moments ago made the query,
A blast deafened all and in the dust all got buried;

The girl who was pushed away to a safer side
Soon after the dust settled found how the blinding light
Had taken away all including her man,
Strewn like unrecognizable parts upon the land,

The girl shouted in horror and grief
Under the chinar tree without a leaf,

Many years after the incident the tree
Remained standing  leafless like a forbidden memory.

That tree

Things had changed greatly
I say , since we have left our summer days
And went to farthest shores, away
From our home town,
Still once in a blue moon
When anyone of us happen to pass
By that park surely
Even in the dark he or she
Would  find that tree
Which we made our companion
Upon whose branches we had swung
And sitting upon them how we always looked at the distance
Finding the lazy motorboats gliding on the river
Or a bunch of workers going home in the noon day heat
Walking briskly,
And those chimneys which stood like grand towers
Belching smoke which went up to compete with clouds,

So many other trivial things how we did notice
Amidst our games of hide and seek
Or mere gossip,

The day would wane and before we would return home
We would take a leaf or a bloom
As pretty little souvenir,

We picked them
As we picked tales too,
As we sought our summer refuge
In the big tree.

Smell of lavender

Coming back from work, Sreemoyi was sipping her evening tea, sitting at her favourite spot- the window of her bedroom from where she could see as far as golf course which appeared like a lonely but distinct patch of greenery amidst the buildings of the city.
Come evening, when the city would deck up in shimmering lights and far away when the bridge over the river would dress up in tiny dots luminous like a beauteous damsel in a flowing gown, Sreemoyi would just look at cityscape as visible from her window. The window to the world outside.
If it rains she would try to sit there for awhile till Riddhi would come home.
Despite being married for eight years, her marriage to Riddhi had not brought any child to her lap. She and Riddhi could have explored other possibilities but with the passage of time , the eagerness to bring a child home had died down considerably. Riddhi being always busy with his office tours thought it to be quite suitable not to extend the family further barring they two. Initially she had implored Riddhi to explore other possibilities , from medical to adoption . But she had noted how Riddhi had accepted their destiny and how he never showed any utmost sincerity on his part to make a family proper. So they had lived so far like two persons sharing rooms , living together, doing their respective works, a married couple. Sreemoyi also perhaps thought it a way to lead a life without hassles of bringing up a young one.

But the season of rains brings in sometimes a slight tinge of melancholy, specially when she is alone in the flat with no works to do at home.

The season which makes the world greener, fertile and colorful, makes her often to think of her past.
Just like this evening.

Sipping tea and playing with her strands of hair by her fingers she was looking absentmindedly to the scenery outside.
It had rained heavily in the afternoon. Now  the rain having receded, a cool breeze was blowing. Sreemoyi suddenly thought she got a smell of lavender.
Lavender was the scent of body powder that Bodhiswatta wore in summer and early monsoon afternoons.
After the final class at the university when they would walk side by side till the main gate of the university campus, sometimes the whiff of air would bring the scent of lavender from Bodhiswatta.
Sreemoyi recalled how one late afternoon suddenly they were caught unawares in a storm followed by heavy downpour. They took shelter in a makeshift abandoned tea stall near the gate of the campus. That evening the rain kept them waiting at the shop for half an hour almost. That evening brought them closer. They talked, laughed and chuckled. The warmth of their bodies standing close and wet brought strange feeling in her. In Bodhiswatta too. Sreemoyi could never forget that curious sparkle in Bodhiswatta's eyes.
That evening which opened new vistas for them apparently could have been a really memorable one , had love blossomed in them .
But even before it could have bloomed proper, Sreemoyi's parents brought Riddhi, an executive engineer working in a multinational construction company.
Bodhi was still a student then with his widowed mother and two sisters to support by meagre means of giving tuitions to students.
A private tutor can never vie with an executive engineer.
Bodhi called his quits.
He started avoiding Sree despite her pleadings.
How miserable she felt then.
Oneday out of agony she even insulted Bodhi calling him a coward and a loser.
But Bodhi being Bodhi only smiled. A helpless smile. A heart wrenching smile.

Then suddenly he disappeared.
Literally he disappeared. After the final exam Sree went all the way to Beleghata to Bodhi's rented house. His mother and sisters were there and they informed Sree that Bodhi had left the city looking for a job.
Sree was given an address. A postal address.
Sree wrote at least three score letters before her marriage to Riddhi. No reply came.

Seven or eight months after her marriage, one evening, Sreemoyi was returning home from work. Riddhi was with her too.
At an eatery near Russel Street, where Riddhi stopped his car to takeaway some food home, Sree got out of the car and was waiting on the pavement before the eatery.
She noticed someone looking at her.
A man simply clad in a white shirt and grey trousers who came out of the eatery stopped a few yards before her to light a cigarette.
After taking a puff he just looked at her.
At that precise moment Sree's eyes also fell on him.
Bodhi!
She thought she was seeing ghost of Bodhi.
The man neither smiled nor moved. He just kept on looking at her, quite strangely with a certain air of idiocy.
Just then Riddhi returned.
As Riddhi asked Sree to get into the car, she looked at Bodhi through the corner of her eyes. For a moment she thought she would ask Riddhi to wait a bit. She thought she would call out at Bodhi and introduce him to Riddhi. 

Riddhi was already at wheels, the engine was purring.

'What are you thinking?' Riddhi asked her, finding her standing near the door , somewhat perplexed. 

Bodhi had taken a walk by then through the pavement.

The neon light that flashed the name of the eatery in sparkling orange and red had drawn magical patterns on the pavement, on people passing by, on their faces, backs. 

Sreemoyi noticed then how the neon sign made wonderous patterns on Bodhi's white shirt. 

Sree was suddenly taken aback by the ringing of the bell at the door.

She glanced at the watch.

How she had spent two hours sitting at her window thinking of non sensical things.

Riddhi had come home.

Sree rushed towards the door, cursing that smell of lavender.

Oft I long for

Oft I long for that sweet late evening
Of a delicate aromatic spring
When you took me to your home
And gave me that ambrosaic potion
To drink and savour all night,
To feel how the buds wake up after being kissed
By first rains of the season, freshened,
To get that first hint of heaven
Reaching which one can only get the calm
Spreading all over one's mind and soul,

Oft I long for that memory enlivening
Which took me to find the hills and valleys and bushes
All gradually becoming a part of me,
As if I have been given a strange fulfilment
A view of the world so savoury
That can never ever leave me,

Oft I long for you
And when I do not that do
I perhaps dream of mountain streams
And leaves green drenched by sparkling drops of dew.

Love at dusk

Love at dusk

After many days took the road
Winding as it flowed
Away from the crowd as we thought
We could be somewhere where poetry wrought
Little things into a different rhyme
We arrived where the sky kissed the line
Of horizon gently almost making no noise
There we stopped with songs poised,
She held my hand and whispered soft
"Is it not beautiful that we have stopped
Here where no one is there to intrude us
Is it not a wonderful way to pass
Our little hard earned leisure?" I looked into her dark lake like eyes
And felt got all the pleasure
Which I yearned to get  her face with colors of dusk set
Looked so soothing, calming and filled
With love that only a night rose could seal
In her petals fragrant and blue
How was I killed by that murderous view!

She let my lips touch hers candid
And to feel the moisture in the air
She wrapped me in an encumbered sleep
And to lay my heart for her bare.