Month: June 2023

She reads me out some lines of hers –
Her fingerprints of pensive nights,
When solitude reveals the depths
Her hyperactivity hides.

She reads them from her notebook leaves –
Her kindergarten alphabet
Betraying childlike innocence
That walks in adult silhouette.

My fingers touch her words and feel
The pulsing pressure of her pain,
Engraved in, not her mother tongue,
But buffered English of restraint.

She says she does not write to write.
She writes to free the boiling steam
She has repressed for so so long,
It poems out in whistling screams.

And here I sit, adulted child,
Who writes to write and write again,
Who fuels the stove to fuel the steam,
Producing poem-worthy pain.

He’d promised he would take us there.
The bamboo boat was ready, flagged –
My brother let me make the flag,
A Post-it on an ice-cream stick.

He’d promised he would take us there.
On full-moon night of Kartik month,
When bamboo boats voyaged the pond
In light of rocket fireworks.

He’d promised he would take us there.
But here he slept exhausted, out.
Our mother’s fingers fireworked
Around her warning, shaking head.

He’d promised he would take us there.
But, as my brother pointed out,
The moon was here, the boat was here,
And so were rising falling waves.

He gently placed the bamboo boat
Upon our father’s moonlit paunch.

They call him “Chacha”, nothing else,
For no one knows his name-address.
They call him “Chacha”, Hindi-style –
He’s muslim with no Odianess.

They say he’s come from “border-paar”-
A refugee from Bangladesh.
They say he’s always with his tools –
He fixes cycles, punctures, brakes.

No shop, no sign, no uniform,
No way to show the work he does,
Except the hand-pump on his back,
Except the grease upon his clothes.

He wanders round the college road.
Some dragging feet arrive at him.
Without a word he gets to work:
The pedal, chain, and bent-in rim.

Who cares for names, for native lands,
Who cares how many meals he’s missed,
Who cares for problems he may have,
So long he gets their cycle fixed.

They drop a coin into his palm.
He drops it in a kidney tray,
The one from City Hospital
His wife had neatly nicked away.

It held her bloody afterbirth,
And now it holds his sweaty prize,
Along with dirty water for
Determining the puncture size.

Who cares he has a kidney tray,
Who cares how dark the water’s shade,
Who cares how few the coins are,
So long their cycle rolls ahead.

They care, however, every time,
He’s spotted with his spotless wife.
The one whose bosom jinglebells
While slicing bread with rusting knife.

Beside his roasted groundnut tan,
Her glowing face of groundnuts skinned,
Reminds our temple-skipping boys
Of how unfair our Gods have been.

Sometimes, some cycle-mounted teen,
Emboldened by a gutka load,
Enquires if, like him, she walks
At night, along this college road.

But Chacha only smiles at him
And says, “I know no Odia.
You needed pump? Reflector strips?
In haste to meet somebody, kya?”

Who cares to brake his peddling pace
For what some foolish someone says.
His work’s the only chain that moves
His wheels of past and future days.

I’ve credit, but no currency.
Ambition, but no agency.
Desires, but no discipline.
The ammo, but no magazine.

My vision’s trained along the sight.
My fingers tap the trigger, tight.
I’m going through the motions, keen:
No risk without the magazine.

It shoves you back against your chest,
And pulls the sand beneath your feet.
Disorients you. Discomforts you.
Distorts the taste upon your tongue.
It does this once. And once again.
And once again. And once again.
And yet, you love the sea beach wave.
You run into it willingly.
Submit, surrender, screaming joy.
The man dissolves into the boy.
Why grudge you, then, the tides of Time?

Identified as Odia,
I tend to fie my Odia.

In feasts, in fasts, in festivals,
I flaunt my fumbling Odia.

I pick a book and cannot say
The words are even Odia.

I zig and zag angular shapes
To write the round-round Odia.

I croak corrupt colloquial
And pass it off as Odia.

She blinks when I am blinking at
Her idioms in Odia.

She challenges my English rant –
“Now say the same in Odia.”

She feels she’s failed as mother,
Tongue tut-tutting at my Odia.

Her name of “handful songs” deserves
A ghazal glazed in Odia.

At least, for all she’s done for you,
Go, Misra, thank in Odia.

The things I find so useless now
Were things of beauty, wonder once.
But is that cause enough to love
What is for what it used to be?
The snow that showered yesterday
Is snow to shovel out today.
Or else, I’m stuck and buried soon.

Remember what you hear today.
This waiting hall for grievances
Of people to the Government.
Remember stories that they share
With anger, anguish, helplessness,
Of how they live contingent on
The strokes of disinterested pens.

Remember what you heard those days
In waiting halls of hospitals.
Remember stories that they shared
With anger, anguish, helplessness,
Of how a life’s contingent on
The strokes of disinterested Luck.

At least, your life is not so bad.
You’re not as burdened by such debts,
Both social and financial.
At least, you have alternatives.
You’ve wealth enough to start again.
You’ve health enough to dare to start.
Be grateful for the luck you have.
At least, it isn’t quite so bad.

My journal is for me to write,
For me to read, reflect, revise.
For you, I’ll write a memoir.
For you to dig, digest, despise.
For me, I’ll keep the journal, thanks.
For me, that is, for only me.

My journal is religion.
It’s ritualistic, rigorous.
An act of faith, submissive faith,
That writing it will heal today.
That writing it will clarify,
And keep me grounded.
Right on track.
It takes, on faith, some causal links
That normally I would not take:
Recording brings in Discipline.
With Discipline, it’s Meaningful.
With Meaning comes Maturity.
Maturity makes one Reflect.
Reflection genders Gratitude.
And Gratitude dispels Regret.

This means my journal’s quite a mess.
It’s full of things I do and don’t.
And full of things I feel and don’t.
It’s pick-me-ups and put-me-downs,
Hurrays, but also whining sounds.
Reminders writ repeatedly.
In free hand quite illegibly.
A peek into a state of mind
Too wounded for you to unwind.

You want anecdotes, gossip tales,
Unburdened by the tedium.
My journal will not give you that.
It has the parts, but not the sum.
For you, I’ll write a memoir:
The more readable medium.
Until then, let my journal be.
Or else, your hair, my bubblegum.

I crush my ego with the beans
And offer it in tablespoons.
Baptising in a steaming stream,
I count the drip as rosary.
I sense the scent of strong incense
And taste nirvana on my lips.
Enlightenment. Awakening.
The penance of the aftertaste.
No need for Soma of the Gods.
No need for blood of Holy Grails.
The Devil’s Drink’s my poison picked.