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| Snehaprava Das |
Maa!
A HOUSE LIVES IN ME
Years before,
I lived in a house that stood
Undeterred on its inconspicuous ground
Its terrace-face to the east and
Its back to the west;
I woke up to the crimson dawn
That grew and glowed
Across its front-yard,
Over and around the tall coconut trees
That stood guard over the
Peace and little joys
The house hid in its silent folds
Of brick and cement;
I sipped the sunset that slid in
Through the back wall windows
To fill the rooms with a shade of liquid gold;
I went to sleep
Wrapped in the moonlit dreams
That rolled inside in wispy coils
Through the wooden window-bars;
Years before,
I lived in a house that throbbed
To the rhythms of the trains
Juddering down the tracks beyond
The boundary wall which
Slumped under the weight of
Seasons and noises
And the obscurities the urchins
Scrawled in charcoal
On its weatherbeaten face;
I put my wishes in the racing trains
And hoped secretly they would reach
A wonderland where they will come true
Never knowing of the precarious tunnels
The trains had to move through!
I lived in a house with a roof
That hung gentle and low
I climbed a wooden ladder to its top
And reached out to touch
The foot of an elusive rainbow!
**
Years after,
When I met the house
It wore a fresh but distant look
Filled by unknown faces,
And inside its east-west bounds
Through another sunrise and
Another sunset
I played Blind man’s Bluff with
Muted memories;
The beads of laughter
And the trinkets of dreams
That sat in the secret niches
Now permanently un-homed,
Had boarded a runaway train
And disappeared in the tunnels of time!
**
Years before,
I lived in a house I called Home
Stands a stranger now,
Staring at me from
Eerie, depthless eyes;
I no longer live in the house
But the house it was once
Now lives in me!
***
2. I AM A CITY IN RUINS
I am a city in ruins
A city that has lost its name
In the ever-lengthening road of history
That never turns a bend,
How I thirst for the drops of moonlight
To relieve the night
That fills me from end to end!
I am a no-man’s land
Gasping under a blanket of sand
For a short breath of green,
A vanquished warrior
Splattered with my own red sweat
Struggling to wash myself clean;
I am a scorched woodland
Sprawled by a river that has lost
Its way to the sea
A storm trapped inside a blind fortress
Desperate to get free;
I am a living cemetery that
Houses memories under breathing blocks,
And solitary souls that crave to hear
Life whispering behind the curtain of rocks!
Bio: Dr. Snehaprava Das, Associate Prof. of English (former) is an eminent fictionist, poet, reviewer and translator from Odisha. She has three collections of English stories and five collections of English poems to her credit. She has translated thirteen texts of Odia both classic and contemporary, in English. Her works are published by Speaking Tiger Books, Oxford University Press, Penguin RC, Sahitya Akademi, Black Eagle Books and other noted publishing houses. She has received the Prabashi Bhasha Sahitya Samman, the Jivanananda Das Poetry award, the Fakir Mohan Senapati Translation award, the Lakshmi Narayan Mohanty Translation award for her contribution to literature.
