Nirupama Dutt

She will not think of suicide
It is difficult to devise
ways of dying
and survive the poison
with the guilt of knowing
that the money saved
for the wedding feast
was spent on
extracting the poison
Instead she will take
out the seven saris
saved over long years
in her mother's box
and the locket with
nani's picture that
somehow escaped the
eyes of her drunk father,
put the bundle of her
past in the box
and go to another home
She could well be killed
there for bringing less dowry
The newspaper next day will
carry a small story of yet
another young woman dying
in a stove-burst
...

She is no longer
a little girl
My daughter
is growing up
She no longer
likes to make sentences
as her mother would
She wants to do things
as she would
When her grammar
teacher asks her
to make a sentence
with the word ‘need'
my darling writes -
"No one needs anyone
in this world"
I look at the sentence
and think my daughter
has grown
beyond her years
...

Where did the boats come from? O Ranjha
my trader in love?
Where did the boatmen come from? O Ranjha
my trader in love?

My mother used to sing this
lost song of Pothohar
I recall the boats would come
from Jhelum
and the boatmen
from Attock

My mother had seen Attock
and spent her childhood in Jhelum
For me these are just two
names of rivers and towns
lost somewhere in the Punjab
across the barbed wire

If the boats came they must have
gone somewhere too
I cannot recall the destination
mentioned in the song
Mother is no longer there
or I would ask her
Never mind, I will ask Ranjha
my trader in love
if I come across him
somewhere along:

Where have the boats gone, O Ranjha
my trader in love?
Where have the boatmen gone, O Ranjha
my trader in love?
...

Come let's forget the storm
that tore us from our
respective caravans
and brought us
together for the night
and to please a
fussy hotel manager
made us write
Mr & Mrs
before our names
Let's forget that
tomorrow
we will
tread separate paths
in search of
yet another mirage
Tonight let's become
babes lost in the woods
wear garlands of
wild flowers
and lose ourselves forever
in the fragrance of musk
...

Where must those letters be?
Letters written on stormy nights
I sent to many a destination
but never got a reply
or even a confirmation…
The twelve-page-long letter
I sent to that tall giraffe-like boy
who would sit with me till
past midnight talking much
of celibacy and D.H. Lawrence
in the same breath, yet he
was afraid of the balm of touch…

So many letters after that
some harsh some soft
In one there would be
banishment from my life
in another things
would be made all right
One letter would want
that my books be sent back
the other one would
follow a different track…

Perhaps these letters
I sent after stormy nights
to many a destination
were written to myself
Why then did I look
for a reply
or a confirmation…?
...

I will not let sorrow sit still
today in my home
Pushing it into my jhola
I will take it along
to the city streets
Today I will steal a bright red
gulmohar bloom and put it
in my hair
Borrowing smiles from the
Coffee House waiter
a little joke with the
library caretaker I will share

When all these tricks
to cheer a sorrowing day fail
I will sit on the slope
outside the girls' hostel
and light my cigarette
the ashes will mix for sure
in my poem today
and readers will get a chance
to say I am all wrong -
"Such are the constraints of
poetesses of Amrita Pritam's age,
a cigarette is their only solace!"

Thinking of my constraints
I will be ever so pained
blaming it all on my wretched
two affairs and a half
I will go to the poet of the city
looking for life without restraint
He will have half a bottle of rum
in one pocket and a freshly
written poem in the other
He will teach me a mantra
or two of life and reading
his new poem promise to
leave drinking for all time
I too will make a list of
good resolutions and seeking
time for just one more love
I will turn myself into words

The drifting sorrowful day will stop
look back at us and laugh
I will become a part of the magic
of making a sad day snigger
Scattering lines of sorrowing laughter
I will come away
...

In the last few years of the century
the poem will find itself
beneath the moon of the second night
beyond the grove of the trees
sitting on a bench in the
dark corner of the park
in your fond embrace
and thus forgive the passing century
many of its sins
...

Nothing changes really
on changing a city
neither the empty noise of the day
nor the screaming silence of the day
The same grey sky peeps
through the small rectangle
of the window
The blessing mumbled
in mother's trembling voice
does not change
What changes perhaps
is the name of the lover
...

If you come to my city
you are bound to find
my name in the roster
of wicked women
I have all that it takes
to be as wicked
as they come
I have a goblet
brimming over
in my hand
My laughter is known
for its abandon
Flames find a home
in my mouth
My hear beats and
every nerve does
a little dance
The road is at my feet
And just the sky above
I have the courage to bear
and express myself without fear
...