For Rishika A Work In Progress Poem by umashankar manthravadi

For Rishika A Work In Progress



For Rishika – a work in progress

For someone so young it was a huge journey
Days afterwards my body swayed to the rhythm
And I could hear the rhythm broken up unevenly
When the wheels went over a point
Speeded up and broke up in a clatter
Rhythm resumed again. Speeding up and slowing down over gradients
And the tolling of a hung rail passing the window
At a station where we will not stop
People came to stations on the way
with things to eat, news
Others got out, not waking you up to let you know
[one stop on the wayside, not connected to this journey]
This was the market where they sold jewels not vegetables
not interested in that, but what did it sound like?
i have the recordings
one day i will reconstruct the sounds of that market around my head.
Right now not interested in that either.
in my head i heard their poems, listened to their egos
taunt each other, play on words and heard them say
‘we are the poets for now and always’
and heard them weep as a kingdom fell apart
‘talli dayaleda nenu Srinadhudan’
I have watched this small town for many days;
a dusty street of shuttered shops. Strings of dry
red chillies hanging in the sun. Flys hanging on them.
flies on red chillies? we are that poor.
In the night, the town is transformed. Shops open
some of them teashops. Other townspeople buy tea at them
while they wait for the Express from Delhi to Ahmedabad.
it will stop for a few minutes on the way.
Those few minutes
and the time added in anticipation
and the time spent in dispersing after the train has left
is their whole day.
i was here to listen to the songs of tubercular men
sung in the hills surrounding the town
genealogies - people with time.
[that too was a stop on the way. Not connected with this journey]
While i write there is a sudden shuddering stop: middle of the night, middle of nowhere midsentence in a conversation not about to start
The mind fears all interruptions. What will happen next? Are they opening the doors into the dark and dangerous countryside? Who is getting in?
Another nothing. Train snorts, restarts. Does not pick up speed.
You are left with the shock of the stop. Anxiety of waiting. What next this night? Only the chemicals of fear, a few molecules here and there. Wait for them to flush.
It was an accident: probably nobody’s fault
After any event, every step you took or did not take
everything you said or heard
will be relived.
Red earth country. We leave black soil land behind;
cotton land and tobacco land
and money to buy starlets with
but once the land of poetry
Reading Shelley inside the coach
‘I am Ozymandias, King of Kings’
outside it is barren ground; mile after mile of barbed wire
enclosing a single thorn bush
What is the shape of the breast that i held in my hand
the shape my hand still holds or the shape of the breast?
‘but that was in another country’
and a very long time ago

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
umashankar manthravadi

umashankar manthravadi

kakinada, India
Close
Error Success