Poetry: Abhik Ganguly

Abhik Ganguly

Meditating on Ganges at 1 A.M. in Kashi

Sweet winds off

the Ganges, wafted my hair

While the flames leapt on

one another at the eternal pyre.

The melancholic boatman

looking at least a hundred years 

old, narrated legends that

sounded hauntingly familiar.

Dance of the leaping 

flames, immediately arrested

in reflections of Ganges, made

it look like a river of fire.

When we stepped on

the shore, somebody cried

out my name, in the dulcet

voice I’d ever heard.

Turned around to find

an Aghori, with his arms

open wide, calling me like a 

Mother calls her child.

His eyes met mine

As all dualities ceased to be,

We weren’t two persons, but

one now dancing in eternity.

***

The Convalescent Flâneur

With the strange and sublime

sun going down 

The convalescent flâneur waded

past the nudges and grudges 

in the Delhi Metro

With the courteous announcer

announcing bilingually overhead

Slightly panicked on seeing some

maskless faces

They prayed their metro station 

come sooner than later

As an old man with a new smartphone

kept staring at them,

quietly into their empty soul.

The station arrived as does death

Darted they into the closest auto

like an arrow from a bow

Afterwards stood in a little queue 

as they made a cashless payment

For entry into the paradise

on this scorched earth.

***

The Flâneur’s Spring-song

The weather romantic in

a roughly rustic way

like most springs

enacting an ancient play.

Paved sidewalks

A tree stuck in the rock

Slither ribs into young leaves

peals of laughter.

Whilst clouds kiss the roof 

of metro stations, commuters 

wait like long-lost 

lovers of preceding generations.

***

Bio: Abhik Ganguly is a Research Scholar pursuing PhD at the Department of English, University of Delhi. He did his post-graduation in English Literature from the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia. He is a resident of Delhi, with his native roots in Tagore's Shantiniketan, West Bengal. He has won prestigious events like the ‘Poetry on Spring’ contest organized by House of Harmony 2023, besides winning the Amity International Literature Festival’s 'Comic Trivia' which included short story writing and 'Twitterature’. His works have been published in the Creative Flight Journal and Room 16 Magazine of CES, JNU.

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Setu, January 2024