Gayatri Majumdar (Colours of Love and Barriers)

Gayatri Majumdar

Gayatri Majumdar is founder, editor, publisher of critically acclaimed literary journal, The Brown Critique. Her published and upcoming books include A Song for Bela (a novel), poetry collections Shout, I Know You Are Here and The Dream Pod, The lotus of the heart (non-fiction) and ‘Home’ anthology, which she co-edited. As co-founder of ‘Pondicherry Poets’, she has been curating the annual Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival. She often features poets/artists on the Brown Critique YouTube channel.

Blues for Brothers

1.

So said R, all of 14, alighting from that rickety green old bus – 

about the turn at Moulali in 70s Calcutta,

“the Beatles will outlast Abba, I promise you this”,

like I was the dancing queen. I shook a leg.

He then attempted to climb a few mountains – whipping up

egg-white-coffee dreams to keep himself warm,

waiting with yaks beside the pebbled bank of no-place.

R then settled in Shantiniketan, I hear, 

with a homicide and the mania quite dead – 

a long way from Steely Dan, the moon

with Lennon buried in his queen-size bed.

He prophesied my entire life in two crisp sentences;

somewhere in between the mater and pater,

the edifice disintegrates – I rest my case.

2.

Sure, S had a deep philosophy,

I’ll give you this

which finally consumed his belly toes 

leftover hours (no, not his soul), in tiny bites.

He frequently shifted his thought-furniture about,

his Kintsugi-heart bumping against cracking walls, relationships . . .

Now S could never step back, now could he

on this star-speckled mission to space,

smoke billowing his reckless convictions?

I was not going to be the one to convince him

he was always where he wanted to be –

looking for solid ground to hoist the blue flag that high

even as he chipped at bones barricading his home –

always dependable, staying – never leaving, never there.

He preferred walking along Bandra Bandstand

with midnight-chai blowing smoke rings to sea,

his purple heart at bay, still bombastic – 

unlike Alan Parson Project’s ‘Raven’ long playing his windowless bed

sinking into the afternoon rain of this Saras Baug . . . 

What I would do to return to S’s exuberant Bombay ways – 

gazing with wonder at make-believes, prancing about Colaba

taking the Harbour Line inching home…

Chasing a life, we pleased?

3.

Now B was a mystery – I should have granted him that;

unable to decipher the codes of his mind

or what I thought was his cold heart, I let him be.

Early on, he recognized the utter futility of all this – 

the chasing butterflies, the stomping around trees.

He lived off the glory of a dead century – 

alma mater of hard-working men with striking plumage,

who knew what mattered most

plaque-d on walls to prove it.

Now nothing ever mattered to B.

He went about his grand and jagged streets,

demanding little – cradling by the sidewalks

of this illusion sure-footed, reading faces 

scurrying to the beginnings of theories and a hearty Bangla meal.

Like that proverbial old monk – the bottle and the man,

he shied away from petty transactions 

bartering dreams for solitude – 

for that’s what he could afford . . .

so much for small talk, sci-fi eyewear, Darwinism.

Minimalism couldn’t even begin to sketch his sanguine heart

at once fearless yet cowered gasping as if frozen.

B gulped down his last peg to remember 

and forget he ever belonged to this city,

this sacred nowhere – ten rupees still tucked in his pajama pocket.

For what is this but a lila, distorting images 

on the mirror reflecting uncertain arrivals, hurried departures.

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Colours of Love :: Setu, July 2022