BASAB CHAUDHURI

If you belong to everyone,
You belong to no one.
That's the design.
That's how it's built.
...

I received the order today.
I have been transferred.

Not that I am unhappy—
...

He won,
but he hadn't known that he won—
that was the point of turmoil in him.
...

So many roads in front of me,
For someone might make a difference.
I am now lost at the crossing—
Could you tell me the shortest route?
...

Often I forget your address -
a sense of guilt works then,
but as I draw near to the neighborhood,
the map in mind starts showing the path,
...

I remember -

everytime I was close to your house,
there used to be this strange feeling....
...

Friends who give rating on my poems,
although I say ratings do not affect me -
they do.
...

I know these words
find a nest somewhere
and stay there.
...

Walking in front,
shadow falling on the road,
steps were so similar,
curiosity to see the face
...

Night -
I touch it with my right hand
then hold it with both hands,
it comes into my cusp,
...

A body forced into the furnace,
A star lost from the firmament,
A number deleted from the android, -
all the same.
...

I look up,
I look down,
I look up,
And I do frown.
...

As I stood by the sea
I saw the sky melting into the ocean,
Going into oblivion.
I looked at, gazed, saw, and then walked.
...

Eternal journey—
we appear as dots in the firmament,
and vanish without disturbing the sky.
Time flows on,
...

A saucer, a cup -
An equation, an idea.
A family, a trust -
Man, humanity.
...

The last sip—
light liquor,
yet fragrant.
Was it Darjeeling?
...

Every suicide ends up in a post mortem
Physical and emotional -
A bullet or a rope?
Why? What for?
...

Once I felt and I will tell
It was a dense evening
I was walking by the river
Alone, and it was near perfection.
...

'Conscience doth make cowards of us all.' - Shakespeare.
'Ambition doth make giants (!) of us all.' - This unknown poet.

Living in a skyscraper
...

Winter chill this year.
Between the sky and the ground
There is a whitish haze.
An opaque morning.
...