Five lessons of waitingSawmitra Roy
1
It was
a one hour ride
from
Chotojalenga to Silchar
standing
on the footboard of green Bajaj Cheetak.
Between
leaving a home
and
finding another
I had
my first lesson of waiting.
2
We live
in a bubble of silence.
It can only
be punctured by words.
But
this prick needs a perfect timing.
This
was my second lesson of waiting.
3
Some
letters take a whole sleepless night to write
and a
thousand to find a reply.
And
when it came
I had
already moved to another city.
This
was my third lesson of waiting.
4
Music
box chime...Lullabies...
It
takes a long time
to tap
your child to the last sleep
and
wait for him to decompose and become
tender
blades of grass in your memories.
This
was my fourth lesson of waiting.
5
They say
a story ends in a circle.
Will
the starting point collide with the end?
This is
my fifth lesson of waiting.
***
Tonight
(a ghazal)
Stars pricked on my eyes tonight.
I tried but couldn't sell any lies tonight.
The owner asked for the pending rent yesterday.
I went out early. I returned late tonight.
Old letters piled up in the drawer cabinets.
I felt cold inside. I burned them all tonight.
I needed acid to sanitize my soul.
I bought a quarter of the cheapest rum tonight.
The last train's horn echoed from the station nearby.
I kept looking at the ceiling fan and searched for a rope tonight.
***
Heat wave
One
day, suddenly this heat will decline
clouds
will send letters from beyond Barail.
A cool
zephyr tease the curtains. We slide and push
open
our windows apart and let syllables of wind
run
havoc inside our rented room. Dates cling
to the
tin borders of calendar as it sways violently
on the
foolish nail. Dust rise after thousand and one night
of
tyranny of boots and put spears and arrows in our eyes.
One day
we will forget about the atrocities
of this
heat that ruled this suburb and this city and
cool
shades of gulmohar and banyan will reclaim
the
footpath kingdom of this city. One day
we will
forget about the heat and caress each other bare,
skin to
skin at night as if nothing ever burned our skin.
Barail: The Barail Range is a tertiary mountain range in Northeast India,
between Brahmaputra and Barak basins stretching from Nagaland & Manipur to
the east and Assam & Meghalaya to the west.
***
Kite Paper Hyacinth Flowers
but whats the point of remembering all
these again?
Finding
a new home is like waking up from a dream,
half
remembering, half forgetting what you left behind.
Only a
faint memory remains
Of a
Assam type house,
of
flies swarming on cows
slumbering
under the shade of guava tree.
Of a
yellow river
whose
ghat was filled
with
sounds of bilingual tales and bamboo groves.
Of an
old village priest
marking
planetary fates
with a
reed pen on scrolls,
under
the light of Krishnachuda.
Brahma sitting on his
forehead
and
unpaid bills and credits
piling
on his name.
Of his
wife pushing hyacinths aside in their pond.
And as
she returns from her ablutions,
the wet
saree stuck on her frail body
she
hands me a hyacinth flower.
I kept
plucking the soft petals and
held
them to light near the termite eaten window,
the
days of Shravana sifting through the
petals
filled
my world in a strange purple light.
For my
last school project, the old priest makes me
a bunch
of kite paper hyacinths.
I left
it under the desk and never went back.
Finding
a new home is like waking up from a dream
into
another dream.
The
village grew cold.
Only
the sounds of wild rats
gnawing
our dreams on wooden roof.
I am
drowning in a swamp
filled
with purple dreaming hyacinth flowers.
And
whenever the cold slimy roots grows on my face
the
world turns dark around me.
Krishnachuda: a species of flowering plant
in the bean family Fabaceae, It is noted for its fern-like leaves and
flamboyant display of flowers.
Brahma: is a Hindu god, referred to as
"the Creator" within the Trimurti, the trinity of supreme divinity.
Shravana: Fifth month of the Hindu
calendar year, typically beginning in mid to late July and ending in late
August.
***
Cremation
Two
birds didn’t return to their nest this evening.
They
perched on electric lines
that
cuts the storm-cleansed sky of the crematorium.
On the
pyre
the
eyes melts down in an endless river of dreams,
the
bones become dust
as Agni
consumes up your body slowly,
you
have become a story.
The
dark smoke form the pyre
rises
up, spreads and then becomes the night.
There
are no fireflies tonight,
just
embers from the pyre flying south in the wind.
When we
die
our
last breath becomes the wind.
But the
soul hide inside the head.
The
skull didn’t burst.
The
drunk chandal shatters the skull
with a
bamboo cudgel.
Two
birds flies in the darkness.
One with
the soul in its beak
and the
other following it.
chandal: one who cremates the deceased.
***
Bio: Sawmitra Roy is a school teacher. His debut book of
poetry “ In the streets of your city ” was published by Writers
Workshop, Kolkata(2022). His poems were published in Assam Tribune, Indian
Literature (Sahitya Akademi), Little
Journal of Northeast India, Madras Courier, Bengaluru Review,
CultCulture “Masques”. He is the editor of Yawp: Barak’s
English Little Magazine.
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