My Bonny Friend

My friend was bonny

My friend was fun

We played with dolls

We played with guns

We painted together

Together we smiled

And as we grew older

Did many things wild

We talked about love

We pondered on sex

And together just knew

That life was complex

We laughed for each other

We made each other cry

No matter how much we fought

We always did try

Hours were spent on telephones

Letters were exchanged

We never knew how slowly

We both had grown estranged

New faces came sweeping in

Her smile went faint and faint

She stopped being my bonny friend

To be a distant saint

She said she wanted this and that

But those just weren’t my cake

We then lost the common smile

And were linked by bonds of ache

I thought someday we’ll know again

What the other was

But life got somewhat unforgiving

After that long, long pause

She too found a host of faces

Who filled up the places I had

There was nothing for me to do

But to sulk and be sad

I tried my best to grow up and smile

For all the happiness she found

We still talked over the telephone

And I cried without a sound

We wanted different things from life

Though she was my bonny friend

But our friendship was a broken mirror

Impossible to mend

Slowly the phonecalls ebbed away

The need to converse died

No longer I know what makes her happy

Or when was the last she cried

She says it’s nothing, it’s just her work

She says that we are fine

I never tell her that deep within

I sense a narrow line

She now lives on its other side

I am not allowed in

Things have changed eternally

Unnoticed, unforeseen.

My friend is bonny, my friend is gay

Now she lives in her world, far away.

Elomelo Sob Rastagulo

emni korei jodi baki somoy ta hush kore metror moto kolkatar edik theke odik chole jay? jodi harimati school theke mohini mohan kanjilal obdi ekta ichhe, tramline hoye okaron bichhiye dey nijeke? gariahat er footpath theke kena sosta deodrant gulor gondho jodi hothat kore shohid minar er niche chhoriye-chhitiye thaka jonjal theke uthe ase? kimba, metro-gali'r morer cold drink er dokan ta jodi hoye jay south city'r himshitol anach-kanach? howrah station er probol bhir katiye E-1 e uthe chokh bujlei jodi dekha jay GD Birla Sabhaghar... New Market... Sector 5 er jhna-chokchoke sob corporate imarot?

majhe majhe kemon sob guliye jete thake. ei je roj ami niyom kore auto dhori 8B-r ultodik theke, bag samle samne bose kaane phone dhore dial kori ekta nombor... ar sei jete jete je gaarir awaje praayosoi nije chup kore giye bokar moto cheye thaki baire... kimba garia neme rasta par howar somoy poolish er haat theke banchar jonye dhore thaka line ta chhere dewar bhan kore ek minute er jonye kaan theke phone ta soriye niy... 

toke ekta katha bolini konodin, ajke hothat habijabi likhte giye mathay elo.

tui ektu ektu kore kemon jyano amar shohor hoye jachhish, janish...!! jhilpar theke exide er haldirams... ITI er tram depot theke Aminia... triangular park theke milan mela... sob rong mishte mishte mishte mishte mishte mishte...

amar shohor.

"ami onyo kichhu bolbo bole tomar kachhe ese,

ami sibai, kebol sobai hoye jai..."

Moments

Very few moments are like those beautiful negative afterimages that appear for a second or two inside our dark, misty heads and then disappear into an abyss of dusty, deep crevices of unwilling oblivion. Very, very few moments, again, out of these, occasionally float back onto the delicate surface of old, blue memories tainted with fragile, moth-eaten pages of maroon and gold diaries. Of dried tear-marks. Of transparent fingerprints scattered around the keys and reeds and stops and bellows like the crispy leaves of Fall. Of long-forgotten tunes echoing back from antiquity to merge into the songs of today.

Such a moment was that moment, one of the very, very few.

I don’t know if I can live up to its bouquet of promises.

Brishti

বৃষ্টি বৃষ্টি, evening sky
খোলা ছাতা, raincoat, passersby
একা নীল মেয়ে কাঁদে, anemic
কমলা আলোয় ভেসে, nostalgic
জানলার তাকে রাখা saxophone
বেজে যায় আনমনা, home alone
ভাঙা keys, unseen fingering
নেই কথা ফিসফিসে lingering
গাড়ি কম, জলে আজ flooded street
কাঁচ-ঢাকা সবকটা window seat
ছাঁট মাখে ভাঙা সেই saxophone
আর কিছু নীল মুখ, all alone

The Women Lay

The women lay on the sheets, like strawberry pink polythene

Trembling on a pavement with dust, trembling on a puddle

Trembling on the gutter with a stench of sour rust and then

Flying away to another world of ceaseless, intense blight

To be picked up and thrust back into the circle of being

Plastic, dead, but strong beyond the grasp of putrefaction, elastic.

The women lay along the window sills, yellow sunflowers straining

Petals towards golden lights, away and further away from the brown core

That’s bound to spread its wings, a hawk roosting to devour life

And to savor it till its gluttony has oozed away in fatigued pleasure

Like copulating dogs panting delight in biting off the bitch’s flesh

To plant a pain that taints a body and paints a life in vain.

The women lay with their backs on the floor, their eyes on the ceiling

As clouds tempted their vision towards a paralysis of reality,

Magic and blues, their eyelids never closed like counterfeit Barbies

They never let a sound escape from between their chipped, faded pouts

The same well-curved smile they wore and dyed them anew

In scarlet, orange, maroon but mostly in some violet shade.

The women lay with silent stings, clutched the gash between

Tolerant banana thighs, all wings were clipped, their breath lost way

Among meandering sighs, and soundless blood that leaked

Hidden inside an unresolved bandage of rainbows, stars and polythene

As the women lay with vacant eyes, and prayed for bail from motherhood

All the same they understood, the wound is meant to be evergreen.

For those who thrive on my flesh, I must eat on...
For those who live in my heart, I must beat on...