Ketaki Datta (Voices Within)

Ketaki Datta is a poet, novelist, critic and reviewer apart from being an academic. She has two novels, A Bird Alone and One Year for Mourning, to her credit along with two books of poetry, Across the Blue Horizon[published from U.K. with the aid of Arts Council, England] and Urban Reflections: A Dialogue between Poetry and Photography with Prof. Wilfried Raussert. The photographs of Street Art of Americas have been taken by Prof. Raussert and the poems are by her. She is a translator too. Shesh Namaskar[The Last Salute] is her noted work of translation[Sahitya Akademi].Selected Short Stories of Tagore in Translation, The Voyage are her other works of translation.

A Journey from Calcutta to Kolkata

Calcutta was green in those days,

The trees lining the thoroughfare

 Stood refuge to ample of birds,

 Which nudged us out of sleep, each dawn,

 Breathing new life in us, filling us with

 A new ardour, to make the most of the day.

 The tramcars were not a luxury then,

 Nor was it a vehicle of joyride,

 It was a necessity, a mode to trudge on quietly

 To the furthest nook, trailing a track of

 occasional stops,

 Opening up fresh moments to get lost

 in ourselves.

 That Calcutta of early ’eighties

 Was waking up to continual digging

 Of earth, filling us with wonder to

 Dream of an underground railroad!

 Journey from the North Calcutta

 To the South was not a cakewalk then!

 The buses with overflowing throng

 Suspended mostly from their doors

 Was a common sight, to sigh on!

 ’Nineties saw a Calcutta, donned in

 A new look, a snaky underground

 Tube rail was added to its

 three-hundred-year-old

 Body by then!

 One or two flyovers were about to

 Raise their heads like

 hydra-headed dragons!

 “ Keep your city clean” was pasted on

 Each wall, each hoarding!

 Calcutta became Kolkata in the meantime!

 Gangopadhyay and Chattopadhyay

 Toasted the event at Flury’s over

 Cakes, bagels and glasses of hot chocolates!

 Journey of Kolkata begins!

 Tram-fares, bus-fares, cab-fares

 Begin to scale high,

 Premier educational meccas face

 Terrible phases of crises,

 Value system of the yesteryear

 Is in for a violent jolt,

 The flyovers begin to crumble down

 On the passersby, on jaywalkers,

 Stephen Court, AMRI, Dhakuria get gobbled by

 An atrocious conflagration,

 Three-pronged light-stands, spruced up

 Rabindra Sarobar and Ganga-Bank, well-curved

 Park-benches, dazzling

 Snazzy looks of Shopping Malls with

 Smartest Cineplex are enough to make

 Us feel like we are in London!

 Yes, our Kolkata is green, our Kolkata

 Has the purest air to inhale, our Kolkata

 Has much-improved medical facilities,

 our Kolkata is culturally vibrant,

 AKLF, Film Festival,Kolkata

 Literary Meet, Book Fair, Trade Fair,

 Dover Lane, ITC music soirees—

 all keep us warm, proud and happy!

 Even slums have been replaced by multistoried

 Common man’s Housing Complex!

 Why then the burnt-faced beggar still sticks out his

 Palm to the man in front of the Metro Station?

A Swing sways on...

The swing rocked like a pendulum—

 Not from one end to the other,

But from hind to the fore,

 From the front to the rear,

 Backward and forward

 Forward and backward,

 In rhythm, in seamless harmony,

 Just like the keys of a piano,

 Touched with softness,

 Like moving lips,

 parting in a smile!

Like alternate bass and treble,

Like surging crests and receding troughs!

The swing rocks to and fro,

 The swing oscillates, on and on—

 The past, the future

 Fall in its trajectory,

Though it skims past

 The present, inadvertently!

 Past to Future,

 Future to Past,

 With Present intervening

 Like an interlude

 of a medieval play!

Call it Rose or Fragranta

A soft-petal-rose was plucked

 by the blind woman,

She waved it beneath her nostrils

 Twice, thrice—

The fragrance entered her breath,

 Stirred her whole being,

Enveloped her in an amazed feeling,

 She fell head over heels

 In love with the sweet smell,

 She in half-opened eyes,

 Whispered ‘Fragranta’!

 Is rose ‘Fragranta’?

 Or just a reddish-rosy flower?

 Does really rose have

 Sundry names to be

 dearly addressed with?

 Does rose have its beauty

 Locked in its petals?

 Or its stalk, or fronds

 Or its thorns?

 Or in its maddening fragrance?

 Both fragrance and charm

 Endear it to one and all,

 It will keep enthralling us,

 No matter by hundred names

 Or with just one we call!

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Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020