Everyday
from behind the betel nut leaves
a day just lays treat
swaying low and high
swinging even now
when you sigh
from a distance
miles, miles away
flapping sounds of Ganga
leaves me tingled,
Howrah in his majestic silver
marshals Bengal.
“Durga,Durga!!!”(*i)
All around
in clay, on the walls, on the sleeves, tattoos too.
Kali Maa*(ii) not left behind
the dry dung lanes,
dingy hour-basis inns
sprawling dense ponds
her hands
full on her long, well-done plaits
She leaves you loved.
Playful, petite, pleasant she
“Doesn’t she look old?”- asks Harun
the slave gets an answer
“yes, some three hundred years old.
was a priestess when I first saw her.”
“Joba”(*iii) she insists,
on every visit,
you pay.
She corrects you: “Rakta, Rakta Joba”*(iv)
when you meet next.
A decade back, she was in Dakshineshwar
now I see her
singing high notes
from the papaya branches,
the niddling coconut trees
the grey clouds, the trampled ghats(*v)
Now
left to every passers by
Even those who play “slogan- slogan”.
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(this is a poetry keeping West Bengal as a base, a fraction of its part plucked …)
*i: regular phrase used by Bengalis,a form of Goddess
*ii: Goddess Durga’s other form
*iii: Hibiscus (Hibiscus schizopetalus)
*iv: blood,blood Hibiscus
*v: river landing
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