Voices Within: Mandira Ghosh

Mandira Ghosh is a poet and author of eminence. She is the recipient of Bharat Nirman award and also Women Achiever Award 2020 in the field of literature by Asian Literary Society. She has published and edited eighteen books. She is the Guest Editor of the Poets of India, Special Issue of The Seventh Quarry, The Swansea Magazine from Wales and is awarded with a Senior Fellowship of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Has received the Editor’s Choice Award, twice by the International Society of Poets, and has been elected to the International Poetry Hall of Fame. She is presently Treasurer of The Poetry Society (India) and also a member, the Governing Board and member, TPS Editorial team. 

Eastwards

Here lies near the setting sun

over my jasmine creepers,

over faded chalk marks of my old tennis court

A shadow of the sun's movements.

At six-thirty, the flight that comes from the western sky

Won't land at the Palam

Will fly eastwards, 

over to Dacca, over Myanmar, Singapore, Bangkok, or Manilla,

Over my broken blue bangles

scattered over the limitless ocean

that scattered over water endless

Time floats in time

Aroma spreads on space

Proof of my existence in my blue bangles,

Floats today over the ocean. infinite.

***

At, Mall, Shimla

She came down 

From Darchen, Tibet

A lonely village 

On the foothills of Mount Kailash.

Completing her Kora 

She was happy

Purchased wool

To give warmth to the world

To survive, from snow and cool.

She took the Silk- Route 

Somehow reached Shimla

 I met her near the mall.

Her face wrinkled with the weight of time,

She stood erect and defied gravity.

Tourists came to enjoy and play, 

while

She held the needles firmly

To knit for, 

our soldiers,

For newborns of the frozen hills

For the young, the old, and the infirm 

but bold.

knit socks, mufflers and sweaters for all.

She went on knitting 

Till the needles fell on the ground

Picked up to resume again to knit the mufflers using remaining wool

But before that she

gave me a toothless smile. 

And informed the cruel world 

To be kind, compassionate,

To remain bold

though she might be poor, homeless, battered and old.

***

A Piece of Paper

A piece of paper

ensuring my happiness of

empowering women,

fell on the river water,

darker than darkness.

Rain showers then

on deep, dark waters,

to drown the paper

that could not be drowned.

How significant can be the communication

that reaches on time

to the needy,

to the infirm,

to the aged

to the shattered

to women changing society's norm!

The piece of paper carried all

Communicated and

reached all

soaked, battered, washed

But it reached on time.

Intact, comprehensible.

Beyond dying and death.

To the world

That needed new vision and change.

***

---

Setu, February 2022