BASAB CHAUDHURI

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

Often they ask me
how I am doing.
Do I really know?
...

Time ends.
Yes — time ends.

This handshake —
...

You said
I didn't try to understand you.

I had a feeling
...

Fall of leaves.
Gentle breeze
carries them away.
...

Happened.
I don't know when.

Happened.
...

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.
...

To remain present at the right time,
To remain silent when required,
To know what to speak about and when
Without knowing the subject-matter,
...

It's all about tightening the screw
Pressure builds up
Most die, just die,
Some sustain, sort of selection.
...

Once a poet met a miner -
They had a cup of tea together
at a roadside stall and conversed.
'What do you do? ' - asked the poet.
...

Life is....
Unfolds
As a creeper,
Moves up and along.
...

She waves her hand
He looks back....
Now to the Western Front!
Streams, forest, mountain.
...