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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Holiday


Anik and I are going on a holiday to the city of our birth. We will spend the first three weeks of June doing things we haven’t done in a long time. This includes visiting many of our dearest friends, loitering for hours at roadside tea stalls, sipping cup after cup of lemon tea near the Lake embankment, foraging for old books in the second hand book market, perhaps catching a good play or a movie, getting drenched in unpredictable monsoon showers, smoking weed on the banks of the Ganga, maybe chartering a rowboat and playing rock bang in the middle of the river, eating too much street food for our own good, getting more body parts pierced, getting high before having to meet uninteresting relatives, getting sloshed in the middle of the day at some disreputable bar, and ambling aimlessly along unfamiliar alleys while languidly indulging in some socio-political debate .


Among other things, this means that there will be no posts on Rivers I Have Known for the next three weeks. I will, however, be reading all your posts, though I will probably not have time to comment. I promise to be back with lots of photographs, poems, experiences, observations, and Anik-dotes.


Take care of yourselves meanwhile. Will miss all of you. Will miss Cat’s foray into the world of fiction, Deepa’s adorable creations, Karen’s paintings with words, Sweta’s world-wise observations, Kriti’s plaintive rants, Joaquin’s musical expeditions every Thursday, Goirick’s bitter-sweet nostalgia, Jason’s maggot-kissing photos and spooky psychopaths, Aniket’s sometimes innocent sometimes sinister stories, Anirvan's passion-play with words, Priyanka’s utterly libidinous poems, Crafty’s unbelievely cute crochets, Mahesh’s heartfelt stories, Sawan’s poems that are sweet and sad at the same time, Margaret’s earthy poems, Atanu’s beautiful use of words, Amit Das’s homesickness, Amal’s daring experiments, Arnab's ruthless murderers, Quaint Murmurs’ funnily sad interpretations, Preetilata’s strange way of looking at life, Pradiptaa’s collection of amazingly good poetry, Sucharita’s little angels, Sarmistha’s tongue-in-cheek annotations, Amit's lyrical hindi poems, Smitha’s comments on my favourite books, Kirti’s well-aimed advice in her letters, Shubhajit’s ventures into darker and darker cinema, Sagorika’s sparkling poems and prose, Sakshi’s bizarrely funny experiences, Satan’s Darling’s acrostics, ….’s deadpan humor, Chriz’s very gross and very hilarious essays, Nikhita's bitchi rantings, TFL’s dark tales, Gagan’s love’s labour losts, Cherry Blossom’s photography. Amith’s adventures, SSQUO’s oddities, and all the other magical blogs that I read. See you guys in three weeks time.


Hasi, Bokom, Shila- am really looking forward to meeting you guys.


Happy Monsoons.


Ciao.

Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 


Oh- by the way, because of the recent cyclonic devastation, we have decided to scrap our plans to hit the beach.

Watercolor by Dilip Chitre. Photograph of Watercolor by LGL.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

A Moth In Love


A moth falls in love
With a playful tongue of fire.
What is love but death?





Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 

Sunday, May 17, 2009

A Love Song For Bhati








Bhati doesn’t know me.

Bhati wouldn’t care.

He looks in my direction

And all he sees is air.




His eyes are burning beacons

His eyes are so alone.

As cold as morgues at midnight

As motionless as stone.




Bhati doesn’t know that

A bird inside me tries

To home towards the beacon

Of his lonely, lonely eyes




He’s a quiet man, is Bhati.

But not one you can ignore.

In that solemn head of his,

Bhati keeps a silent score.




But I hear a thousand echoes

For the words he cannot utter

Like he’s at one end of a tunnel

And I’m standing at the other.




They branded him and caged him

They rubbed him raw and red

They roasted Bhati on a spit

Till his charred ol’ soul was dead.




But I would rain upon your wounds,

I would set you free,

If you’d only let me, Bhati,

If only you would see.

Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 

Thursday, May 14, 2009

An Acrostic and A Milestone


A writer can only

Hope for people to read and
Understand what she writes.
Nevertheless, it gives a very
Definite high when she
Realizes that
Every single silly thing she writes
Does manage to find a

Few people who think it’s interesting,
Or funny, or sad, or
Lovely, or outrageous, or plain
Ludicrous. So today, this writer,
Overwhelmed by her
Wonderful fortune in finding such an
Eclectic, weird and fun bunch of
Readers, would like to
Step down and bow in gratitude.


Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Twelve Hours With A Highway


There is something emancipating about being in a bus that's doing 140 kms an hour, on a highway that rolls on through deserts and mountains and shrub forests. The place you are leaving behind had no bars, the place you are heading to promises no extraordinary freedom, but still you feel like you are escaping, you are breaking parole, you are rushing headlong into adventure.

As your bus scurries like a terrified ant in and out of one of the world's most ancient mountain ranges, Gilmour and Wright sing in your ear-

Ancient bonds are breaking,
Moving on and changing sides.
Dreaming of a new day,
Cast aside the other way.
Magic visions stirring,
Kindled by and burning flames rise in her eyes.

The doorway stands ajar,
The walls that once were high.
Beyond the gilded cage,
Beyond the reach of ties.
The moment is at hand.
She breaks the golden band.


Every ten kilometers or so, the sky changes from sunny to cloudy to rainy to furiously sunny. The scenery changes too. Sometimes you see fields where mustard will perhaps grow later this year. Sometimes you see villages in the distance, and goatherds sing in some weird dialect as they guide their wards home alongside the road. Sometimes you see a lonely chimney that puffs black smoke into the yellow sky. and sometimes the desert takes over triumphantly, and you see nothing but miles and miles of unfriendly shrubs and thorn flora.

If you are lucky enough not to sleep through it, you might also get to see the sun set on the Aravallis, and a purple pall descend over the heated desertscape. Then impenetrable darkness, and sitting amidst twenty odd strangers sleeping fitfully, you are left with your own thoughts. You ponder upon the directionlessness of your life, and why everything is so scary, and how things change so fast and never go back to what they used to be, and how it's okay, it's always okay. And they still sing to you, those two, of burning bridges.

Bridges burning gladlyMerging with the shadows,Flickering between the lines.Stolen moments floating softly on the air,
Borne on wings of fire and climbing higher.

Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 

Friday, May 8, 2009

On A Wooden Bridge



It's not yet too late
To wash my skin clean of you.
The water beckons.


Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Just Before The Storm



Gray swarms the blue
Like angry bees,
The pregnant skies
Turn into seas.

The wind, he smells
Of joyous earth,
Of thirsty fields
Bathing in mirth.

Coconut trees, they
Dance and sway
To welcome clouds
That float their way.

Birds rush homeward,
Children dance
To the earth and sky
And their new romance.

Clouds in baritone
Voices sing,
A drop lands on
A heron’s wing

And then the skies
Start giving birth
Crash down in pain
Upon the earth.

Blurred and shimmery,
All at once
My world becomes
A cosmic dance.
This photograph was taken by my friend Bokom just before the first of the famed Kalbaisakhi (monsoon thunderstorm) hit Kolkata this Sunday. Wishing all of you a refreshing monsoon.
Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there! 

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Secrets Die A Lonely Death

A secret flame of steely ice
Cuts through layers
Of secret lies.

A secret lust,
Some secret fears
Choke to death
On secret tears.

Beneath the layers of secret lies
No one knows
When a secret dies.

Some secret fears,
A secret lust
Slowly, slowly
Turn to dust.

Secret flames on icy breath.
Secrets die
A lonely death.


This is a Painting by K.P.Reji. It is called 'Wait, Wait For The Next Move'. I'm sorry for the horrible picture quality, it was taken with my phone.
If this painting makes you write something- a poem, a haiku, some lines, whatever, please do
share...


Amritorupa Kanjilal also writes at Rivers I Have Known: Books, Reviews, and More. Please visit her there!