20. Takku

Takku plays his games

That only he can see.

Loose-lipped, cross-eyed,

He peeps above the table-rim—

Is there something for me?

Noor sits silently, 

Takku tackles lovingly,

Begging to be groomed. 

Sleepy boy is swinging

In his perch set by the window, 

Covered in litter sand, 

I remember as, before I kiss him, 

I brush away the invisible grains

And leave a faint impression

On the markings on his brow. 

In the first few days

When Noor was petrified, 

Takku took the lead.

He verified the safety 

Of this unknown asylum,

Bumped his brother by the head 

And brought him to his food. 

Emotionally aware

Sensitive

Bullied 

Loved

Baby Takku takes the stage!

19. Attraction

The veins

Take over my thinking,

Sweep me away

Like dying leaves 

And balled-up tissues 

Issued like rations

(The old standard).

Familiarity in conformity,

The day whisked away

By the never-ending churning

Of the sea on which the serpent rides,

Waiting for the ends of days

Stitched together like rosary beads

In a never-ending spiral. 

Virulent sensation 

Stationed at the open doorway 

Of my heart. 

18. I Sing

I sing this body ad libitum

Except for every beat I skip,

Except for every bone I break,

Except for any tiny cell

That sings itself ad libitum 

Until its singing chokes my own. 

I sing, but know that every note 

May be a part of this work's coda,

May just be fanfare for the silence

Of my body's decaying act. 

A seashell holds each note I play

For you, for whom I lift my bow,

With every note, played ill or fair,

Trapped in amber and duly sent

To you and so, though curtains call,

I grieve, but dare not stop and bow 

Because you should hear one more song 

And so, alone, I carry on. 

not with a bang but a whisper

If the end of things is foretold 

I was not present 

for the telling. 

When the plague is past

there will be no dancing

in the streets.

Only an uncertain hope 

and hands too tired 

to hold it. 

Of course 

we may seek 

to bend this truth to our will

deny finitude, completeness

say 

this moment, this life

has drawn to a close 

but I have still have

one more thing

to say.

Oranges, Colour Theory, Death, and Writing-with Avani and Supurna

 

The unraveling peel both bright and dark
In its white pith-fibres, dispensing the sun,
In its wine-red skin, hoarding it. 
Oranges and plums (are they peaches?)
In Anne Vallayer-Coster´s kitchen (did she
Buy them?) pile light upon light as it
Reaches through fruit into woodgrain.
She doesn´t seek to hide them, the petals
Fallen from the unsuccoured flowers. 
The glass gleams, as does the knife
Inflicting no pain (yet) on  still-breathing
Life, the orange slices a sundial, counting
Down the hours.

*Inspired by Avani and Supurna´s mediations on oranges, and this tiny hand-sized copy I made of 17th century French painter, Anne Vallayer-Coster´s still life (seen here framed and ready for the art school´s annual exhibition)

Not my last poem but a fitting end-of-April ´To Anannya´ : Titled, as the page in the book is - Acknolwdgements - and dedicated to the Daily Riyaaz community

 

night ferry

At an uncertain distance

from the shore

there is only 

the uniform blackness

of sea and sky.

Water does not hold 

the memory of distance 

like land does.

What is here now

will be leagues away 

come morning 

and something else 

will arrive 

to take its place.

In the distance the low fire

of the oil rigs

blinks a message

to the boatman 

who is walking now 

along the gunwale 

barefoot and untethered

as though blind

to the foaming sea

that waits

patient

at his heels. 

The boat dips and sways 

the arc of its light flattening

across the water

and I am consumed

by the thought

of how far 

beneath and beyond me 

this heaving 

molten thing 

extends

and how dearly 

I want to cry out

into the pitch black of sea

in answer to an

ancient voice

that is calling to me. 

At the gates of the body (translation from Gagan Gill)

At the gates of her body

she awaits him

Outside is just as dark

as inside.

For Avani who lead me back to DR

To push a pal to pick up the pen
Is to help him return to a place again
A place where the shells of our feelings
Were cracked and scrambled over toasts
After a dose 
Of Elliott or Ismat, Donne or Saadat
Drunken nights and shameless tears
A lifetime of comfort from our reckless years

April

The end of Act 1 of the year
Tucked between a disciplined motion,
The 'march'
And a permission to be, 
The 'may'
Begins with the celebration of fools
And ends early like November and June
"Time is a construct" some would say
But to read beauty in the form of these designs 
Is a celebration of the consensual function of meridien lines
An acknowledgement of the fact that it behoves us to know
If it's worry or just the summer that caused the sweat on your brow

A RUBAIYAT FOR RETURNING

A ten-year old December anticipation

turns into suffocating frustration

A black smog has smothered sunshine

Home is now an alien destination. 

I've come to see a face growing old.

For too long, I've ignored time's cold

finiteness. Finally, I submit to its grip 

to return to nativity's primal fold. 

I came to stay, but strayed apace.

To flee the tarry air licking my face.

Finding solace in Buddhist viharas and the

shade of trees, gleaning calm and a bit of grace. 

I return to the face I've come to see. 

The first home that housed me, my first tree. 

The air clears up, I take shelter in my roost,

forgetting time and its limits. At last, free. 

April’s showers

The blossoms of Spring

will now fade and burn in the molten heat

leaving behind the shadows of words.

 

Even as the seasons turn,

how cool the sea breeze that wafts in now

how comforting the bonds made in April.

 

 

 

Thank you all for the warmth and inspiration at DR!

April after a year's gap

It will come around again

the April of cruelty, the April

of loss and memories. 

It will come back in trees 

bursting in flowers, as if it 

never bypassed spring. 

Those of us that return here

will be an older version of 

Aprils past. Flowering out of 

spite, softened in sap, more 

careful now, minding the gap. 

colour theory

I watch a man paint an orange

on the internet.

He builds its shadow

in careful strokes

first green, then blue, then red. 

Colours I did not know 

to look for in a shadow. 

When I was young

and washing paintbrushes

the water always ran

dull brown 

the ugly outcome 

of a meeting of lovely things.

There is a logic in this

I am sure 

a rule that

given time and modesty 

will reveal itself to the willing. 

To see the world 

for what it is made of

you must begin by

looking away.

Oranges (a translation from Jibanananda Das)

Once I leave this body

Shall I never return to this earth?

May I come back again

On a cold winter's night

With the pitiful flesh of an ice-cold orange

At the edge of some friend's deathbed.

First rain of the season: a ghazal

It snuck up on me when I was sleeping, the rain.
It had drowned out the alarm beeping, the rain.

When summer gets right under the skin
it has everything in you leaping, the rain.

When life becomes a little too much to take
it reminds you of all that’s keeping, the rain.

Likened to manna and love but how
it could leave you weeping, the rain.

Charu-Khepi loves laundry sun-dried and warm but this
holds together rhythms of sowing and reaping, the rain. 

Roll up your kurta sleeves

to fight

with the grime

on the underside

of the old iron kadai

coated with hardened

black, oily clumps

of generations of

patriarchy.

Anondo Bhoirobi - a translation

 

(An attempted translation of Shakti Chattopadhyay's Anondo Bhoirobi - original follows)  

Anondo Bhoirobi

Now in that room the picture hangs loose 

at monsoon’s end not how it used to be

the garden held rain-pecked flowers

Anondo Bhoirobi.

 

Now the pastures miss the shepherd boy

the banyan misses crying to his flute 

but still the rain spades at the cloud

carves out lightning grooves

 

Did they not know it is these times of loss

that leap and snatch the rooster’s red tuft

did they not know what a waste of heart

the miser’s left hand

 

Did they not know the city is more iconic

much more than this heart’s abode

did they not know as much as I had known 

from fingernails to shore

 

Now in that room the picture hangs loose 

at monsoon’s end not how it used to be

the garden held rain-pecked flowers

Anondo Bhoirobi.

 

আনন্দ ভৈরবী 
- শক্তি চট্টোপাধ্যায়

 

আজ সেই ঘরে এলায়ে পড়েছে ছবি

এমন ছিলনা আষাঢ় শেষের বেলা

উদ্যানে ছিল বরষা-পীড়িত ফুল

আনন্দ ভৈরবী।

আজ সেই গোঠে আসেনা রাখাল ছেলে

কাঁদেনা মোহনবাঁশিতে বটের মূল

এখনো বরষা কোদালে মেঘের ফাঁকে

বিদ্যুৎ-রেখা মেলে।

 

সে কি জানিতনা এমনি দুঃসময়

লাফ মেরে ধরে মোরগের লাল ঝুঁটি

সে কি জানিতনা হৃদয়ের অপচয়

কৃপণের বামমুঠি।

 

সে কি জানিতনা যত বড় রাজধানী
তত বিখ্যাত নয় এ হৃদয়পুর
সে কি জানিতনা আমি তারে যত জানি
আনখ সমুদ্দুর।

 

আজ সেই ঘরে এলায়ে পড়েছে ছবি
এমন ছিলনা আষাঢ় শেষের বেলা
উদ্যানে ছিল বরষা-পীড়িত ফুল
আনন্দ ভৈরবী।

 ❤

This is one of my most favourite poems of Shakti Chattopadhyay. I was intimidated but also tempted. Critiques, comments, suggestions are most welcome. I hope the English version will also be enjoyable to those who don't read Bengali. 

OLD AND NEW

A new neighbourhood. 

Training the mind to forget old girlfriends. 

A new school; learning how to sit in 

the same classroom with boys. 

New bus numbers. 424, which keeps you 

connected to the old neighbourhood. 

411, 432, 490, 541 and a numberless mini bus

that pull you through the city's arteries 

so you can hear it breathe. 

A new house, unpolished and incomplete

but with a terrace overhead and a wide field behind.

New markets, haphazard and dusty,

sleepy in the daytime, grubby and

noisy in the evening. New neighbours,

all sharing gossip in your tongue.

Old shenanigans on new street, field.

Old lunchtime mischief with new school friends.

Old joy of sharing produce with, 

asking for ice from, new neighbours.

Old sweat and crowd on new bus routes. 

Old luscious chapter of mangoes in new house.

Old comfort of studying constellations 

with grandfather on new terrace. 

Old relief of finding known strength in the sinews of a new life.

For Indhu

I have been counting down
to your birthday
It was the day you got your diagnosis
I was told and I picture you in the hospital
wondering what to say to all the people
sending you life’s best wishes and love.
Again, I think – I should have called!
Again, I think – we should have met more often!
When you did not reply that day
I thought the “viral fever”
was pretty bad and that soon
maybe in a week or two
you would be back in form.
I still cannot make sense of your absence.
Yet, every time I see flowering trees
(the Jacaranda, Copper pod, Sampige
Pongam, Tabebuia – still make our city special
and in my mind’s eye – I read the poems
you’d have written for them when I see them
flaunting their falling flowers)
every time I make a delicious coconut based curry
every time I smell chakka (I know jackfruit was
your muse) – I think of your bright eyes dancing
and that smile, the words tripping out
I think of your sharp sense of humour that saved
many on many a day – and I know you are here
even if you are not there. 

loss

Before the season 

of resilience begins 

the days of mourning

must end.

And while you know 

that this is promised

to you 

as it is to every other

it is so very hard

to believe.

 

The Return of Ben Adhem [A sequel to Leigh Hunt's Poem Abou Ben Adhem (1834)]

Abou Ben Adhem got sick of the heavenly feels
So he returned to Earth and found a teenager scrolling reels
As he began writing, after finding a place to sit 
The teenager noticed him, but didn't seem to give a shit
Holding up his cheer even if a little shook
"Are you not curious about my book?"

Abou said
The teen raised its head

"Pretty cool what's it made of?"

Abou cleared his throat with an artificial cough
"Don't you want to know what I'm writing?"
"Sure" said the teen, Abou didn't need more inviting

"It's the names of those who love the Lord" in a gentle tone
The teen gave a nod and returned to his phone
"Alrighty then,

Shall I write you as one who loves your fellowmen?"

"The ones on instagram yes, the ones on LinkedIn not so much.
And James from school but we're not in touch..."
Abou's peace had left him and he looked in pain
Feeling a little guilty the teen tried to explain

"I'm seeing too much of everyone now and loving them all is a little weird"
The teen could go on but Abou disappeared
The next night Abou returned with an announcement and a smile
"God wants you to run his instagram profile"

Burning Deck (after Casabianca)

I know why he stood on the burning deck

He needed to set it on fire.

Or combust himself from all the ire.

Here's the original poem: https://poetryarchive.org/poem/casabianca/ 

Watering the roots

When I learnt about drip irrigation in school,
I had no idea what it looked like,
no pictures or illustrations
in the chapter on agriculture,
only the line-drawing of a man with a dhoti
carrying hay on his head,
his mustache large and black, his torso unclothed.
 
Years later, I take the kids to a visit an organic farm
run by the local school,
and ask the students to stand in line and behave well,
to absorb all they see - like a sponge, water.
They do. Between whispers and giggles.
Then they help make a drip-irrigation pipe
with their adept and nimble fingers,
unlike my knotty and arthritic ones.
The water drips from the pipe
slowly, slowly,
drop by drop, straight to the roots
through some magic network of tubes and valves.
 
But how strange that I am reminded
of the grief, happiness, wonder, care,
and all else welling up in me
to irrigate drop by drop by drop,
the kernel of who I am,
and how much I love,
how on grey days,
or on bright ones,
the faucet mustn’t stop
dripping.

For Charu, with Bhaswati

If glass jars could hold words, mine
Would meet the sheer walls of 
Reflection and shine, gold in the day
Silver all night. Your plants would
Know how to make my words 
Grow from single notes into lines
Of music like poets singing the morning
So practiced that kettles whistle
And birds rise; a sunrise of eyes
Meeting each letter in recognition,
And our mothers materialise out of
Memory and desire. (See how old
Poets conspire to to speak in our
Tongues!) if glass jars could hold 
My words I would sit happily among
The paraphernalia of your days
Quickening to life or melting to stone
Never alone.