a puppet and a doll
into our worlds
took a stroll
and when the doll
danced her dark teary eyes
and the puppet
leaped to the stringy ties
nobody laughed
and everyone cried
that we were the same
none of us denied
the puppet puzzled
the doll lost all delight
back to the realm of toys
the only place for them right

a fractured hand
deep inside piles of the past
a divide in its grip
it perpetually needs a cast

a fractured hand raiding
a dump of death and dark
the fingertips just touch
the sliver of hope the spark

a fractured hand deftly
takes the Bible apart
and rises uncertainly to feel
the faith in human heart

a fractured hand but
is no steel clasp
like sand salt or the raging raindrops
it eludes every closed grasp

there is this complete silence
and with one hand behind
your unseen ear
you seek
songs
you insist
like a mother
that a deaf child finds
songs in this complete silence

i was in a hurry
when on my way to august
i bumped into time
she was standing amond debris
of jetplanes, dear days and desiccated roses

i was in a hurry
when on my way to august
i bumped into time
and questioned her neat smirk
about the jetplanes, dear days and desiccated roses

i was in a hurry
when on my way to august
i bumped into time
and she said she'd never taken another step
oh she'd never run towards racing days after
the jetplanes, dear days and desiccated roses

in the unequal measures
and a stranger's stolen smile
in dementia's locked treasures
and the sunset that sons defiled
lies the unreturnedness they call life

It's amazing what an evening spent at an old age home can do to kick some perspective back into one's life.

Someone immeasurably dear turns thirty today. The thirty years say next to nothing about him (except for slightly hinting at his little paunch that I feel compelled to make a dig at whenever I sniff out even half a chance) and I find it rather difficult to define, compare or write about him. But, I try still…

you are

like one warm weary old sweater

that we always find place for in any cupboard we own

that we always seek out when we are cold

that we always treasure despite the areas torn

that we always get into after the show of gold

Happy Birthday, Da! You know I could think of enough and more instances that make each line true. And that is just so heartening.

the shine of the diamond
you were
cannot be stifled in the dead air
of the box
that closed oh so suddenly

for someone i never knew and think of almost everyday...

the turned page asks
for laws to be unwritten
for laughter to always be free
and the memories forever framed

staring at you
from the card
the black eyes of
the joker peer
your fingers
swift and sound
prioritize

the joker cries
as luck lies
you are just
a house of cards

A peering pair of brown irises.
I wonder. I wonder what you seek.
And so intently try to read.

losing grip

come may
come what may
the grime
under the nails
the lines of our palms
now changed
the cuts
the scratches
the bruises
and little rivers
of running blood

the wrist in its grip
has life
and all our
lost strength
come may
come what may

for six feet of resilience.
and the size four feet that drag me along anyway...

i looked intently
for signs of life
in life
in the green of the leaves
in the sparkle of the water
in the smiles you gifted
in the tears you didn't shed
in the dreams we never rode
into reality
i looked intently
for signs of life
in life

and life
let the quest sway
she turned away
i lied and i lived on...
i lived on


for a friend of a friend...for inspiring :)
thank you, you two :)

Cal Calling...

I want to go to a place where sunlight literally chases me out of bed at five. It swarms in through the windows and I can't help but wake up and welcome the morning.

I want to go to a place where I can wake up to my granny's warm and slighty sweetened light tea which is served in the most adorable looking china and veiled in a tea cosy that was made by hand for her by her cousin many many years back.

I want to go to a place where I can walk to the riverside early in the morning when the city's just waking up, sit there awhile...maybe buy jalebis packed in leaves and tied with string on my way back home.

I want to go to a place where I can see the past making it's way to the present...not like a thorn in the eye of "modernity" but as a part of the past which has been allowed to seep into the present and still elicits longing smiles. I love the way the house that belonged to Girish Ghosh is preserved in a way that the traffic moves for him and not the other way round. And the old homes you come across in the little lanes...a lot of brown bricks and spurts of green. Achingly beautiful.

I want to go to a place where the attention of the whole household surrounds me for the few days that I'm there...where cousins get back from work and make impromptu plans and everyone gets into the car and rushes to the nearest mishti store where you get the loveliest sandesh and radha ballobis.

I want to go to a place where beds are made impeccably. Maybe it's the bed-specific brooms or something they use but the beds are made the best in Cal. White or light bedcovers, stretched and taut and clean and nice with little side pillows and frilled pillowcases...makes you want to just leap onto the bed and lie there.

I want to go to a place where the windowsills project inwards into the rooms like railway berths upon which one can sit...sit and be a part of and apart from the ongoing conversation...where one can feel the wind coming from outside, gaze at the mango tree in the bagaan, touch the light crochet curtains some aunt would've made years back and occasionally have a say in the noisy Bong conversations where everyone's saying all they have to say at the same time.

I want to go to a place where the yummy smell of potol posto and shukto emanate from kitchen...where meals are cooked amidst stories of weddings that took place in the 1940s...who made a tail and attached it to the groom's kurta...who ate 27 rossogollas at one wedding...whose dhoti came loose...whose benarasi was woven with real gold... I could spend hours soaking all that in.

I want to go to Calcutta. If you haven't already guessed. I've been there just twice in my twenty years and the eighteen years that I didn't get to go there are starting to seem a little wasted to me now.

P.S.

And the words that I began to italicise halfway through the post are not just italicised because they're too Bong for some of you to figure out but also because they have to serve as a reminder to a certain someone of his much needed aid when I'm attempting something like this with my limited knowledge of Bangla converted to English spellings. Hmpf! Always missing :( I know you're having pav bhajis with extra buttered extra pavs which will all add to ahem a certain roundness somewhere.
Jokes apart, I hope you will read this. Hugs :)

your ideals lie glistening
priceless
mine lie in a beggar's bent bowl
small change
your gods bask in glory that's
illimitable
and mine walk around for they're
my people
you have just one life to
live
i could disappear i could die
many times over
but for luck someone wise says all lies
in the minds
then why must your ideals cost me
my ordinary happiness

somewhere between the ivory of the moon and the rust of the earth lies a world the shade of the purest coal...therein lies purpose, sadness, comfort and a strong smile that takes in all...today's sunset or an occasional eclipse...sometimes the earth misjudges the distance...and the moon denies its silken light...the earth trudges ahead and in the world the shade of the purest coal, she finds her light...

red doesn't need to be told
to be red
to continue to be red

red does sometimes merge with blue
to be purple
to continue to be purple

fingers of porcelain
pretty, painted and perfect
and cold

I can laugh all you want. I just can't find my smile.

the mirrors that count
lie within

You don't need to own the moon to love to it.