Essentials of Living: Laksmisree Banerjee

Laksmisree Banerjee

MOON-SPINDLES OF SINGHBHUM

Weaving cane baskets

darning rags

making coconut-brooms

sun-drying dung cakes

for stoking half-dead fires

wrapping up cracked huts

with muddy slime

along denuded roads

is what they know of

as destiny---

the dented coal-tar

the beaten corn

the wheat in meagre spread-outs

on the margins of highways

compose their lives ---

their nude children

progenies of darkness

kick on the outskirts

away from life, light,

human kindness ---

their black burnished bodies

marvellous oily statuettes

used for hard sun-burnt labour,

picking up firewood

or dry, half-rotten fruits

in deep, pachyderm-infested jungles ---

for back-breaking chores

in devastated fields, farms or homes

for leasing themselves out

to lazy, lascivious males,

owners or husbands

in liquor-stupor---

The moon steadily blinks

on these tired horizons

of Singhbhum or Simlipal

of Bethla or Bamnipal

yarning her stories

on an eternal spindle.

+ Singhbhum, Simlipal, Bethla, Bamnipal—Tribal Areas/Districts of Jharkhand, Eastern India

***

THE MALE SCHOLAR

My friend

I have just met

Is an international scholar,

A fellow Fulbrighter

From the Arab world

Of learning,

A herald from 

The crescendo of the Pyramids,

Of Tutenkhamens who knew

The deepest secrets of life ---

He knows the ancient Egyptian classics,

West Asian as well as

Greco-Roman history and culture,

And of course he is immersed

In the scientific scholarship of the West.

I planned to have with him 

An exciting scholarly affiliation,

Join in for the Washington Conference

On Global Climate Change ---

“I am the Dean of my University”, he said

“And a Food-Technologist,

My country still believes in the Purdah ---

You know, our women at home 

Are best-fitted behind the veiled lattice,

But we are progressive

And my country is Pro-American”.

We discussed over coffee at a café

World issues far beyond our homes,

The same important ones, as we would be doing

At the Interface at Washington DC ---

I felt good as the sky soon changed colours, 

Elated by my scholarly company

Till he said “I have travelled across the globe”

While his eyes did the same

Across my body.---

Late in the evening I got the hint

From the Man

As he stretched out his hand to hold mine

I said “Good Bye”

 And forgot the damned scholar!

***

THE GOD I KNOW

 

I have known him

In the cerulean shadows

of my dreams:

 

I have felt him

in the gnawing pulse

of my desperations:

I have drunk him

through the clenched roots 

of my moist, muddied soul:

I see him often

beaming through the countless

faces of 

my feelings, 

my fears,

my hopes,

my tears ---

I often touch

his fleshy, ardent pinkness

through stretches of 

my deepest sleep,

through the soul of

my hardest awakening ---

I have heard this god of mine

through the midnight intensities

of joys unknown,

through the cacophony of living,

in the flappings of my free lines

in the sonority of my heart ---

Being is the only god I know,

ever-loving,

ever-treacherous, 

a splendid reverberation,

ever-shifting, 

a magic serenade

lilting through

the mirage of my golden screen.

***

OF MOTHER AND TREES

My Mother perhaps was born

 on the same day as Anne Frank

Anne saw the cherry blossoms

 dreamt of the chaste beauty of life

in cloistered darkness

 till life said goodbye,

Her dreams were fulfilled

in the buoyancy of eternity.

My Mother planted her hibiscus tree

 watered its roots daily

Added vital soil to nurture

 its soft growth and

save it from the burning sun

 while she always dreamt through drudgery.

Her dreams lived throughout her

full life, forever unfulfilled.

(this poem was first published in WASAFIRI, Routledge, London 2010)

***

THIRST

the brown wilted leaves in whorls,

cuddled in parched mud

can hardly breathe,

some of them still hang

on twigs of the crooked tree

with a bent broken spine unquenched forever

along the thirsty brackish shores

of an orange-grey sunset ---

the withered flowers on ground

trapeze in a dance of death

rolling in a wayward breeze

crunched and beaten by the chill

of heartlessness inviting

the dark clandestine night ---

I sit lonely with the warrior waves

thrashing my feet frail with endless walking

searching for seashells with live mollusks

hoping to find a susurrating oyster

a brilliant preserved pearl in its core

I seek to hide in me

from the tradesmen out there ---

waiting for the drowsy sun 

to drop into my lap lovingly

for a tranquil sleep ---

yet no scintillating pearl, 

no warm love in sight

as the sun dives into

the abysmal cold waters

leaving behind the fathomless night

myself lost in an eternity

of search

for the light!

***

PINK POESY

as I wallow in the salt-sand seas,

 a briny minuscule, a grated mote

of dust in the slush of the temporal,

 wriggling in whirlpools,

you sweep downwards with your

 great flailing wings of eagle poesy,

an ethereal swoosh from an elysium

 into the flush of my cheeks, a tingling 

 of the eternal aorta in my heart

 as I fly in your wraps on a magic carpet

 beyond the time-space continuum, 

 I spread my cosmic wings in a merry void

 of thoughts buoyed to sail and swim 

 in a flowery, feathery, fragrant whim

 of our melting lilting divine poesy

 fulfilling me to the ultimate brim.

***

Biodata

Prof. Dr. Laksmisree Banerjee is an established Poet, Writer, Editor, Literary Critic, Educationist, International Scholar, Rotarian (a Multiple Paul Harris Fellow) & practicing Vocalist, with many National and International Awards, Assignments, Books & Publications to her credit. She is a Senior Fulbright Scholar, Commonwealth Scholar and a National Scholar in English from the Calcutta University, India. A University Professor of English, Poetry & Cultural Studies, an Ex-Vice Chancellor of Kolhan University, she has taught, lectured & recited in Universities and Literary Festivals across the globe. She has been widely anthologized with Eight Books of Poetry, One Hundred Twenty Research Publications and Several Academic Books. Of the many Awards she has received, a special few need to be mentioned  viz. Sahitya Akademi’s “Avishkar” Honour  for her multiple expertise, cited as “A Scholar-Artiste and Poet-Musician”, her UGC Postdoctoral Research Award for her path-breaking Literary Work on the Comparative Studies of World Women Poets, the Honour of The Connossiuer of  Creative & Literary Arts by the Tunisian-Asian Poetic Society, the Kala-Ratnam Award and the Reuel International Lifetime Achievement Award 2021,among others.

   Dr. Banerjee happens to be the Indian Rashtrapati’s Nominee on Boards of Central Universities & believes in using her Pen and Voice for Social Justice, Peace & International Understanding.

---

Setu, January 2021