Srijato

A

I never got to visit Puri with my father and mother
Nor Shimla or Ooty.
Never mind those distant places, we didn't even go to the zoo or the book fair
I only got back home, switched on the light, entered
My own room and observed
How, adding to their mutual distance every day
My father and mother made room for me to go away

B

On some nights the force of gravity stops working in our locality
When I'm late getting home, I start floating on the road,
Dogs, cats, rickshaws all float past me. Somehow I manage to
Open the front door and find the food strewn on the floor while
The crockery is happily floating about and among them my mother
Floats too, her head on my father's shoulder . . . no annoyance,
No squabbles or catfights . . . as though I haven't even been born yet,
The house redolent with the aroma only of peace and joy. In happiness
And embarrassment I float too in a corner of the kitchen, falling asleep
Slowly till things return to normal, till their bitter quarrel awakens me

C

My mother has many demands
She wants me to be a great poet, get a job
Have a happy marriage
And many other small things
My father doesn't want anything anymore.
Slower and more hunched by the day, my father's needs
Amount to three matchsticks every night.
One to light a cheap cigarette
And two, just in case my mother and I are lost

D

My father was once a great friend of mine
My mother, my friend's wife
Then, as is usually the case
The friend grows distant
His wife comes closer
For instance, my father now
Sits idly on the stairs
My mother and I
Chat, watch TV, go to bed together

E

Newspaper doors? Shut
TV channel doors? Shut
School and college doors? Shut

Only the door home is open. So I go home.
My mother is teaching music downstairs. Songs of a lifetime.
I slink into my own room and lie down.
Very late at night, when it's almost dawn, I tiptoe
Into my mother's room next to mine and sink my teeth into her sleeping throat
No songs. Warm, fresh blood.
And, incapable of sinking his teeth into anyone, my father,
Locked out of work ten years ago, sits silently at a distance on the floor holding a cup. Waiting.

F

My father and mother have this cat-like thing
About them. Much of the day they curl up
In corners, their eyes closed. When awake
They bicker over fish curry and milk packets,
Hurling ever louder yowls at each other
Even taking swipes with their paws
How long can one stand this? I'm tempted
To take them by the scruffs of their necks
Abandon them somewhere, that'll teach them.
But then I think, they aren't really cats,
At their age they may not be able to
Find their way back home anymore.

G

I believe my father ran away to Puri when he fell in love
With my mother. Because she had turned him down at first.

In Puri, sitting by the ocean
My father gobbled slices of fried fish and drank copiously
While my mother, with a high head of hair and large eyes
Mused on the way back from college, why didn't I say yes

This year in Puri I really wanted to
Locate that storm-blown father of mine
Bring him back to Calcutta to stand
By my mother, just turned twenty-five
But when I asked the locals they said
All that isn't available anymore
The sea has retreated a long way in these thirty years

H

Perhaps I was asleep one day and my father had gone out
When my mother's old lover came and said on seeing me
- Which class is he in now?

Perhaps I was asleep again another day and my mother had gone out
When my father's old lover came and said on seeing me
- He's just like you

Awake now after all these years
I'm looking for those two again

Did they ever meet?
Fall in love?
Did they marry and settle outside the city?

Couldn't I go and live with them?

I

And after all this, bearing my father and mother on my shoulders
I pass a wedding celebration, traffic signals, the Staff Selection Commission,
And news of deaths, one after another. My legs tremble, my nose
Bleeds, but I don't faint. On my left shoulder my mother sings
Semi-classical Bengali songs, on my right, my father watches TV
An action movie. And I stand with my feet planted on the heads
Of my self-absorbed father and mother, yes, I. Who cares nothing
For getting a job, disdains the poet's fame, doesn't want to fret
Over love and separation, who only wants to see the world ending at once.
...

It's absolutely true that God eats apples with his rice
Those of us who have seen the man up close know
Every morning, disguised in a lungi and shirt, he
Buys vegetables, prawns, and so on, before
Reading the newspaper with his high-powered glasses
His wife goes to work, they have no children, he
Manages to pass the afternoon and evening in sleep
He sleeps because he has to stay up every night
In the poky living room by an oilstained light . . .
A brass plate of rice on a three-legged table
At which God sits and eats, but not just the rice
Two or three apples turn up suddenly on his plate
It's not a big deal, happens every night, inevitably
But before you know it the number of apples rises
As the night deepens, they no longer fit on the plate,
Apples are heaped on the table, floor, everywhere.
His wife sleeps, the fridge sleeps, the TV glows blue . . .
He is not perturbed. One by one, patiently, he eats
The bunch of rotten apples, their pus oozing out
God eats them all by himself, staying up all night
The apples we don't eat but pass on to our maids . . .
...

(After watching Il Postino)
The postman you had befriended
Gathers dry leaves now and
Sings an unfamiliar tune to himself

I'm looking for sustenance in end-rhymes
I've bought sleep, a broken moon, wicker chairs
Wondering how long it will be to tranquillity

The lake whose shores you used to wander on
Is as dry as a stone which I've put in a ring
In the worthless hope that my luck will turn

Colour-coordinated scraps of flattery in the morning
Solitary walks in the afternoon . . . How will I
Write you letters in my language anymore

The city air is a bilious green, the trees, poisonous
I refer to writing as a bad habit now
Breaking old glass panes with new pebbles

Only an enchanted madman, lazy, gaunt
Gathering dry leaves all day
The postman you had befriended
...

Wrinkled skin. Age? Must be three or four hundred
Like dark circles beneath the eyes, the western
Hemisphere engraved on the shell, so extraordinary
But absolutely silent now after all those wars
Won't listen, won't speak, won't look either
We only gather in a crowd every evening
Eating small portions of that old story
Vanished phrases, broken words, missing letters
Still we eat the story, sharing it amongst ourselves
Thousands of years ago, in some race or the other,
Once, yes, once, I had defeated the hare.
...

The problem is that Madan has not been speaking since
This morning. Absolutely silent. Perched on a wall
He's feeding dogs, birdwatching, but no, not a single
Word. At first no one gave a damn. But when it became clear
Even late in the morning that Madan, who untiringly offered
His considered opinion on everything from a short run to Pokhran, had still not said a word, rumours began to fly
People gathered in ones and twos around Madan, who was
Oblivious, impassive. Some said, "It's the shock of love"
Others, "This is what comes of thinking too much" And so on
But when Madan didn't utter a sound despite the crowd
They got busy trying different ways to make him talk
"How about some tea, Madna?" asked Keshta. Madan was silent.
Debu-da said, "Look Madan, there's Mitali." Madan was silent.
Nidhu decided to take a risk. "Madan is a baaaas . . .
. . . tard." Madan was silent. Madan was silent, silent, silent.
Now the people got angry, it started with raw abuse
Then they tugged at his clothes, and finally they spat on him
And now, in the evening, the situation is so bad that
Nearly a hundred grown men and kids are sitting by his feet
Tearing their hair out, sobbing, writhing on the ground
While Madan just keeps feeding biscuits to the dogs, and
Constantly counting birds
...