The Alley

Of cigarette packet silver rangta foils
And many sugar coated sandesh spoils
This is a tale of our very own Manik’s alley
Flat but picturesque as the terrorized valley
We begin with the stop where buses stop
A temple where mothers pray and hop
And move towards the roadside food stalls
Where fried black oil flows like Niagara falls
Dhrubo has been selling his brick and bracs
Cursing the day he emigrated with two sacks
His smuggled goggles reflect the cinema shop
That pays Rs. 5 homage per seat to many a flop
Dulled eyes look towards the psyche asylum
From the press that presses Daily Bengali Ghum
Which has fueled the innumerable paper boat
Sailing open drains which make mosquitoes gloat
Right outside the display Benares Mithai Bhandar
A quintessential shop for a thriving Bangla sansar
Who build their dreams from their second floor
Which holds five houses all with a green door
But before we move into their detailed specific
Lets walk down to the bazaar quite prolific
There’s wear and tear on all kinds of sale
Fish of all kinds but the humongous whale
The chicken seller is busy with his feathers
Tying bird legs to keep them in tight tethers
Potato and onions heaped on top of mounds
Of course there’s a whole frequency of sounds
The sky above is cloaked with colored sheets
Beneath which one sees million and one feats
This market has one peculiarity to offer
It has shops tailored for the prince to pauper
Above the market are the matchbox homes
On whose porches the women sit with their combs
Children both naked and not conjure adventures like Sinbad
Their devilish shrieks could even turn Lucifer mad
Armed with a plethora of grandmother’s tales and whim
The grandfathers take their progeny on a wild spin
Fathers cozy cocooned in their unperturbed shell
Puff as they dream of where mystic fairies dwell
The older children from class eight and onward
Scheme get rich technique to take them forward
So untamed and peculiar is this world they live
One couldn’t separate chaff no matter how fine the sieve
These eccentricities are essential for Maniktalla
For without them there wouldn’t be a mohulla
Wait! There’s much to be wrote and read
This not being the end of what’s been said
Tales of lives lived within stuffy brick quarters
And individuality of Bengali women for starters
All that is left for us to later diligently extract
Turning common knowledge into poetic fact
Hear ye hear ye I’ve one final thing to say
Hope you all enjoyed this nostalgic word play

Nameless

We do not name the dead
They die without a name
That is the fate of the dead
A nameless sort of suffering
Like the empty cry of a belly
Or the want of fresh blood
That never quenched thirst
Which is a nameless death
Killing, names trying to live
Turn them into many a dead
All…all nameless corpses
Bodies dead without a name
Such is the fate of us dead
Us who have not a name

Intimacy

The intimacy of bricks and earth

is strange

Farther the bricks attempt to distance
sooner they fall





And those reared in mother’s affinity
remain strong






The intimacy of bricks and earth
is strange




Father the bricks make their distance
still hear her call

The Theory of Darwinian Natural Selection

He combed his brows
And laid his eyes to rest
The spectacles dropped
His nose bridge was marked
Fingers clasped plastic
And put glass in its position

(a sure obstruction otherwise
if it were not for his need)

Eye brows turned crooked
Eyes had a knowing gleam
Spectacles stayed their own
The bridge let waters run
Fingers felt thin paper
As he read in a fixed pose

(a trance of sorts, meditative
if it weren’t for moving eyes)

Looking up; he did do so
A window- framed world
Looked back at him, stared
As he did gaze at the trees
If they had voices they’d say,
“Please do not look so strange.”

(but trees have no voices
we know of, but imagine they did)

His once combed brows
Now so naked in disarray
Pondered their existence
What they could do,
Given the situation -
Never truly functional
Never truly useful, now old
And ruddy in the middle

(they did not respect nature
for nature had been meaningless)

An eighty five year old soul
Drew air into an old body
Such times require contemplation
So he did; thinking very hard
The wavered brows indicated
Pain pilled in difficult capsule

(they said he was useless
that’s what was said, useless)

He combed his brows
And laid his eyes to rest
The spectacles dropped
His nose bridge was marked
Alas his eyebrows felt useful
They’d caught his forehead’s tear

(they held the moisture
and didn’t let go until it dried)

Paper cuts Letters Love

Paper cut pain licks

Do paper cuts bleed?

Letters’ fading memory

Crimson stain borders

Do paper hearts ache?

Where edges blurred
In blue felt ink remain
Unanswered by love

Is silence love’s tongue?

Words now like bone
Dust into fading sand

Paper cut pain licks

Do paper cuts bleed?

Crimson stain borders

Filling empty white

Do paper hearts ache?

Where edges blurred
In blue felt ink remain
Unanswered by love

Is silence love’s tongue?

Tears become text

LULLABY

Evil sees right through me with a smile
How long can you pretend to play good?
Smile broadens as I keep feeding on guilt

The clock strikes one…no mouse runs down

I observe the cat purring by my empty feet
You know it will surely scratch you someday
My feet jerk nervously, deciding upon a kick

The cow jumps over the moon…now foggy

Flesh perched on a cool metal trigger, toying
You will resign as all the others have done
Fingers shivering with the cold metal touch

Bah-bah black sheep…that’s being racist

Evil sees right through me with a smile
How long can you pretend to play good?
Smile broadens as I keep feeding on guilt

To The Shelter of Trees

Take me to the shelter of trees
Where I might taste an orange
Freshly fallen from the branch












Take me to the highest clouds
Up on which the orange grow
Setting to the dew all the nigh’












Take me to the farthest fire
That refuses no fuel we pour
Ne’er bowing to blowing wind

Ink

How blue the ink stain

has deepened on still
paper lettered to anon
I mus’ to heavy spots
clear scratches aback
my body does hurt
not more than a thin
paper cut through me
where word lies lost
without its lost limb
once so blue withstaen’
Fade away, fade away
my faraway memory
for what use are you
as a memoir undone
whisper myself to wind
harsh beating my chest
plays the distant drum
and sings me his song
“how brave mans’ heart
faces howling canons
fearing his love gone”

Ratri, a Woman

Let me become your mirror,
Holding only an image, enough
To shimmer my desire afloat.

How carefully you hide in veil,
Dark calligraphy around twinkling
Mirrors reflecting your gentle light.

Sindur trailing into dusts of distance
And the bold forehead’s medallion
For lovers to witness in your aanchal.

Let me be a lake filled with still water
To catch your image in my tranquility
For the lives swimming within me.

The Lotus Man

The lot of the muddy pond
Blooms alone in the morn
Hidden to the dimmed eyes
The lotus eater swims on
Unaware of the thousand
Flowers to appear in time
In memory of that one lotus
That stood ground amidst
Dirt, deluge, suffering, pain
Of the chocking black lake.

The man brings back the lotus
Before the temple gates open
And factories begin churning
Smoke towards a drowning sun.

The Red Frocked Toad

A red frocked toad
Leaped onto my broken boat
and told the tale of the one legged goat
soon enough my eagle got very bored,
How quickly she went through frogged hoard!

Flutter

The pigeon has not flown,
Home is much too distant,
and the wind mighty cold.

Flutter over soil not own,
the pigeon is then killed.
Now body too distant- too cold.

Silence

Silence speaks.









She has spoken.
No more a stranger.
Mi casa es su casa.



She and I in pronoun.
Love living in her.

Gandhi and Nachiketa

People have heard of the Mahatma time and again. Most ears have received the man's name with fond respect, although some cannot stop criticizing M. K Gandhi. But not too many people who use the English language to communicate have heard of
Nachiketa,
a boy who walked up to Yama and came back with the knowledge of the "atman". Both these figures from India share the common desire to know oneself- one an old man fighting for freedom, the other a child discovering the grandeur of humanity.


GANDHI:
Son, why do you sit so still?
Hasn’t your mother told stories,
Of princes, and kings, and gods,
Demons battling good to lose?

NACHIKETA:
My ears are thick with stories,
Tales of all those sweet and fragrant,
But all around there is a stink,
Although its fetid reason eludes.

GANDHI:
A child, but burdened you are,
And who said there’s some rot?
Don’t you like the smell of roses,
And the taste of honey suckle,
Which grow in our land’s gardens?

NACHIKETA:
Father, you tease as other men…
They mock my dreary soul,
And send me forth to fetch a game…
Or hunt the restless dragonflies fluttering.

GANDHI:
Come sit by my side, and we shall be men,
You, Nachiketa, the new and I, the old,
We shall talk of all that your heart desires…
And the stench might vanish from air.

NACHIKETA:
And the air shall be clean again?

GANDHI:
Boy, so you have breathed the fresh,
Wind carrying tunes of a myriad countrymen?

NACHIKETA:
I have…but I was a mere flesh then,
A being without much thought,
For now the troubles haunt me…
And in you I see the reflected,
Light that will drive my worries away.


GANDHI:
Like the Asuraas who ran at Vishnu’s sight!

NACHIKETA:
Mahatma, may I sit at your feet, as we speak?

GANDHI:
Why my feet, for your place on my lap.

NACHIKETA:
Then I shall whisper my words…’cause
In creatures of Earth I have no trust to spare.

GANDHI:
So we will begin with trust, and turn towards,
The greater burdens that your mind carries,
I shall be the scarecrow turning black thoughts,
Unto the distant hills, away from our abode.

NACHIKETA:
So be it Father as I wait to hear your words…
Words that heal the wounds inflicted by words

GANDHI:
O Nachiketa trust is a gift from Krisna,
Without it we invite howling grief,
To camp within our very make- and spin,
Cobwebs of dark and failing deceit.
But with trust we succeed to gather,
A handful quantity of peace that remains,
Deep in conscious and fires happiness.

NACHIKETA:
Do you then trust the British?
My father says they’d be cruel,
Men who would lack conscience n’ morals…

GANDHI:
Why shouldn’t I trust the British?
Wasn’t it an Englishman who was,
The cause for birth of revolutions all over –
In Africa, in America, and even in India?
Should I harbor the audacity to dislike,
A people who have given this world countless,
Truths…truths of nature, and truths of mind?


NACHIKETA:
Then why do you wish them to leave?

GANDHI:
So they might realize my truth –
Our collective truth, if I may say so
For which we have been in penance so long…
God had made man in His nature…
And it his nature to live and let live,
Sadly the politics of governance has
Taken away the art of it, forsaken,
Such a truth while harming our people,
Using us as fodder to feed their cows and coffers.

NACHIKETA:
And what say you to those killing the English,
And proclaiming superiority of our people?
Do you despise their efforts? Or, scoff at
The sacrifice they make at the alter?

GANDHI:
Does one have to despise to dislike
All things one disagrees with? Let all
Such thoughts fly away into a clear sky
That can bear seven opinions in a rainbow.

NACHIKETA:
Talking of flying Father, into the Sky
I wonder why can’t I grow wings,
Like the young butterflies and go,
Whence the flowers bloom in sun,
And the rain only adds splendor,
To the stream flowing down rocky paths?

GANDHI:
A butterfly cannot think, it flies,
But you my son, are bound to ground,
In your chains of thought - so am I,
So is every human soul on earth,
And for that we may curse or crave.
Choose you what must you choose,
After all



NACHIKETA:
A man am I then,
and not a butterfly, nor a boy?

GANDHI:
A boy, yes, a man too you are,
And I know your kind are in thinning,
Hiding themselves under blankets,
Of frivolous boyish runabouts –
Reading not the writings on the wall
But fat books of poison that dig a hole
In their imagination, and opens the door
Of wonderland with elf n’ seafarers;
But to be frolicking is your age,
And none should commit the crime,
Of snatching that child from within.

NACHIKETA:
O Mahatma, the sun sinks now,
And mother shall be awaiting my call,
The woman I do not wish to hurt,
For she has suffered much pain on my behalf.

GANDHI:
Their pain is the gift of womanhood…

NACHIKETA:
I must run down the valley now,
And fly like a kite, a post rather,
Fall before my doorstep before,
Father’s return, for his cane I do not miss.

GANDHI:
Go, go, go run wild in meadows…

GANDHI:
Look there - a child goes running,
Scampering through crowded folk,
Will my country, my land have kindness,
To give to him what he has lost -
Freedom, fun and a pair of wings?

A Letter for Maria...

The war was cold,
Like others it was brutal,
There were guns, and machines,
Crushing the very bodies of men,
And then I found relief,
I could go home,
Someone else had volunteered,
The soldier beside me,
Stuffed a letter into my pockets,
“A letter for Maria…” he said.

The jet plane sped home,
White clouds combing my hair,
And stork birds of fairytales,
Carrying babies in baskets,
The name tags flying ‘bout in air,
A dream on the plane…
The actual jingling of my dog- tag,
A man beside me…his eyes closed,
Only momentary…shivered back to life…
Maybe it was a bullet, or a bomb,
That killed his friend, which woke him…
Soldiers never cry…they put stones,
Stones that stop the bleeding heart,
From pumping blood to the wounds,
Of warfare etched deep within,
That no knife can meditate on.

Home at last…a band of smiling faces,
Gay expressions ready to receive,
These are the people I called my friends,
These are souls once I had words for…
But today I have to be silent…
For home is my prayer ground…
In its silence I might pay homage,
To fellow soldiers whose body have turned cold,
As I walk down the jet plane,
I see the coffins, loaded onto a truck,
As if they were a burden…the coffin loader,
Lifting the dead weight without a smile,
Sweat trickling down his forehead,
And his raw muscles bulging with strain…
Seeger had sung about flowers,
And about men at war, but we,
Those who’ve heard its noises,
Only wish for silence- no songs, no music,
No speeches or preaching, letting me,
Know how painful it is- for I know.

A thought strikes my mind,
An image rather, a picture of urgency,
Fighting soldier stuffing two pieces,
Of paper into my pocket…I haven’t
Changed my trousers…I carry the war,
To my home- the letter still tucked in,
The “Letter for Maria.”

Maria, you live by a distant street,
Where the language is not my own,
To your home I take a cab- its $12,
An unfair charge, if you’d ask me…
And there you stand by the window,
I have a letter for you…

The door bell is loud…
It’s a screaming thing that gnaws my heart,
And a man opens your door…
He is young and handsome…no dirt,
No blood, no pain, no sweat, and no wounds,
He is a man…not a thing to be shot at,
Not an object coffined, or carried,
He is alive- but I, and my brothers,
We were dead the moment we took the gun,
And gave our honor to those like you,
That we’d defend, that we’d serve…

I watch you run down the stairs,
He must have loved you…
My friend must have taken many moments,
To fabricate a message for you…
To let you know about his bleeding heart,
And now smile to myself-
Another man’s wife…and he, no man,
But a count, a star, a name on a wall…
Maria, you will never have to visit,
The black walls of wailing and lament,
I won’t hurt you…my hands are cold,
You stare at me…I smile,
And walk away…with treasure in my pockets,
“A letter for Maria.”