Poetry

Saptarshi Sanyal photo

By

Niladri Mahajan

Machhwalas of Nabin Sen Road

Still the aalap of Lalit haunts

When the voice of first fish vendor cuts

Through the silence, a habitual off-grey morning is

Curling up the nascent activities of the para in her invisible core.

We are like the stranded spider-webs here, catching out the daily prey

Of the silvery-white crops one after another from the slow current

That will start flowing now. The fisher-men emerging on the road

From the various directions with different vocal tones and tempo,

Also varied styles, each one can be spotted by the voices along

Which are readily match out by the residents, the doors open eagerly

As the round on begins from the interior, with the rowing back

Some smiles on the faces of the both as it centers finally, the deal settles

And the Ruhi, Katla, Telapia, Tangra, lote or occasional blessings like

Hilsa, Pomphret or lobsters put upon the floating aroma of locality,

Like an absent moon, sometimes the whole day long.

Machhwalas = mobile fish vendors, they used to sell fish here and there by cycle in the suburbs of Kolkata.

No. 11 Rail Gate

My inner space and eternity, I cross daily like a mountain-seagull, high up in the air as a diffused day, no one noticed. Light sometimes touches me if not never. But I retain sanity in my magical existence, somehow.

My existence I meet you here at last; I touched you several times in this dream. As in every evening walk I crossed this place invisibly and invariably as if on a thin thread. You had blurred the lines of reality here. Like a far remote land from Kolkata, is a garden of sleeping trees, they are all human. They live in Barasat. I hear their voices from the deep beneath land. They are all inter-connected after their death. They all died in the inexorable forgetful remembering consciousness of life, after living a life. Each year several men died. We died with them to live past this. This is the stage after death, the city of Barasat. No one hear us now. None can see. We are all only like the unconscious darkness when you fall a fathomless depth in dream. This is a dream. That is may be a dream, where I lost you. Now here is no consequence that chases me. It’s not a nightmare, once you are inside this rail-gate. We were, we are, we exist only before the coming of a train, that brings you from the other side.

Niladri Mahajan

Niladri Mahajan is a counseling psychologist and lives in Kolkata. He is also a PhD student in Computational Biology, Calcutta University. He is a award winning bilingual poet, the author of English poetry book – “A Diffused Room”. His works has appeared in various publications including the Taj Mahal Review.