Ajanta Paul (Voices Within)

Dr. Ajanta Paul is an academician, administrator, poet and author. She is currently Principal & Professor at Women’s Christian College, Kolkata. She has edited and revised several non-fiction books in addition to publishing academic papers in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Paul published her recent literary work – A Journey Eternal: Poems and Plays in 2013 (Salesian College Publication, Siliguri, WB, 2013, ISBN 978 -93-82216-05-6) following it up with – The Elixir Maker and Other Stories in 2019 (Authorspress, New Delhi, 2019, ISBN - 9 789 388 332620.

Marooned

In a desert island of mundane metaphors

And briars of barren themes

I strive to be rescued.

I cry out

Trying first one, and then another voice

Till my throat aches and no syllable issues forth.

Yet no one hears me...

Neither the words nor the silences

As the seas swirl and subside endlessly.

I light a fire

With the fossilized memories that litter the mind

But no one sees the frantic signal.

I scribble on a piece of paper

Rummaged from my pocket

And put it in my water bottle

Launching it gently on the currents

Hoping someone, somewhere

Will intercept the seafaring missive

Will heed my plea for rescue

And come to take me away

From my remote isolation to creative rehabilitation.

Muzzled

Words were hammering 

At the door, clamouring 

To be let out, of the cage

 Of the mind so cramped

And overgrown with weeds

And other useless needs.

They had suffered a long confinement

In the dark womb of thought

And had had a hard birth

Travelling all the way

To the mouth

Only to find it tightly clamped.

Change

There was a time

when she wrote on paper

yes, with a ballpoint or any other pen

on any piece of paper

that happened to be around

old envelopes or backs of flyers

slant of idea, curve of feeling

captured in careless calligraphy

in the rash shorthand of creativity

before the words could disappear

into thin air

the way they had come

they eventually did go away, though

becoming the diet of termites

in the way of analogous rites

digital forms are more enduring, they said

and sure enough, she switched interfaces

texting haikus from the heart

this was good for a while, or so it seemed

till the language changed, a pity

or was it the sensibility?

with an archaic dialect, you never can tell

what is what, and when things change

all she could be sure of was

that what she wrote no longer made sense

no, not to her, or to anyone else

was it she, or they who were dense?

---

Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020