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| Pranab Ghosh |
An Evening in Kolkata!
No comparison
No looking behind
No movie stars
No skiing in the water!
The breeze embalms…
Memories come, wait,
speak and then leave
only for silence to return
Voices of kids, call out names
as they pass the ball and run…
Feet, sports-shoe clad, red, white
green, yellow… tread on your memories
on a ‘green’ someplace else
in an evening sometime ago…!
You look back, a wannabe tennis star
gets into a hatchback and zooms away…
and you remember ‘sometime’ is more than
four decades behind you and you had been
running all these years in different shoes,
some black, some brown and some colored…!
Sneakers …!
You sneak in…
inside your soul, mind, body…
Have the swans lost their way or
they are tired of ‘water’?
Habitat?
Discontent…
Ousted morality cries in hoarse voice…
Time gargles sanity out of your throat
And a numbing pain creeps up your spine
…
You are a paranoid…
An escapist…
Trying to hide behind memories!
“No accusations please!” Cries the setting sun
As Kolkata breathes in health…
And breathes out…
‘Toxicity? boredom? laziness? a laggard’s life?’
You ask.
“Do you have the right?” Asks the calming breeze, as you stroll out of the park, built in memory of the city's first mayor…
In complete unison, perhaps, with the city and its aspirations!
***
Author's note: The poem is inspired by a stroll down the narrow concrete paths of the Deshbandhu Park in North Kolkata, the paths that find their ways by the side of tennis courts, swimming pools, cricket pitches, enclosures where gymnasts practice ‘martial dance’ and what not! The attached photographs will tell you. Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das was the first mayor of Kolkata.
Bio: Pranab Ghosh is a bilingual poet, author and award-winning journalist. His poems and prose piece have been published by several magazines, such as, Indian Literature, Piker Press, Dissident Voice, Memoryhouse, Imspired.com, Setu etc. His two books of poems - Karma Cola (Imspired.com, UK) and Love, Religion & Politics (Virasat, Kolkata) - were published in 2023. He, at present, is operating from Kolkata, his home city.
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