Shiladitya Mohana Sahoo
Faith
A man was on a long flight. The first warning of the approaching problems came when the sign on the airplane flashed on: 'Fasten your seat belts'. Then, after a while, a calm voice said, “We shall not be serving the beverages at this time as we are expecting a little turbulence. Please be sure your seat belt is fastened.” As he looked around the aircraft, it became obvious that many of the passengers were becoming apprehensive. Later, the voice of the announcer said, “We are so sorry that we are unable to serve the meal at this time. The turbulence is still ahead of us.” And then the storm broke out.
The ominous cracks of thunder could be heard even above the roar of the engines. Lightening lit up the darkening skies and within moments that great plane was like a cork tossed around on a celestial ocean. One moment the airplane was lifted on terrific currents of air; the next, it dropped as if it were about to crash. The man shared the discomfort and fear of those around him.
As he looked around the plane, he could see that nearly all the passengers were upset and alarmed. Some were praying. The future seemed ominous and many were wondering if they would make it through the storm. And then, he suddenly saw a girl to whom the storm meant nothing. She had tucked her feet beneath her as she sat on her seat and was reading a book. Everything within her small world was calm and orderly. Sometimes she closed her eyes, then she would read again; then she would straighten her legs, but worry and fear were not in her world. When the plane was being buffeted by the terrible storm, when it lurched this way and that, as it rose and fell with frightening severity, when all the adults were scared half to death, that marvelous child was completely composed and unafraid. The man could hardly believe his eyes.
It was not surprising therefore, that when the plane finally reached its destination and all the passengers were hurrying to disembark, he lingered to speak to the girl whom he had watched for such a long time. Having commented about the storm and behavior of the plane, he asked why she had not been afraid. The sweet child replied: “Sir, my Dad is the pilot and I was sure he’d take me home safe!”
(An inspiring story collected from internet.)
Life beats down and imprisons the soul and art reminds you that you have one.
Stella Adler
Life beats down and imprisons the soul and art reminds you that you have one.
Stella Adler
The Golden Fruit
Abhash Kumar Boral,
abhash0@yahoo.co.in
Paltan Padia,
Khurda-752055
Namu wiped his spectacle glasses. He tried to clean the thick
glasses with his dirt soaked cloth. He wanted it clean to have a clear vision of
the fruit that he wanted to see after all these long years. It was the fruit of
his dream since his childhood, since the time the enchanting man whispered it
into his ear that this would be his only achievement in life! That was the time when he last
saw him inside his cottage, in front of a sapling of waist height in an
evening. He found him kneeling before the plant in the evening when he accidentally
entered the outlines of the bush made fence. He stood there, behind him as a
silhouette whose eyes were fixed on the body of the skinny man.
‘Get the ball’, someone shouted
from behind, bringing him to senses that let him aware of his situation that he
came for the ball that merely rolled into his compound from the field where
they were playing. He came here with his investigating eyes to search for the
ball that had sneaked itself somewhere in the darkness. He saw the outline of the man’s
skinny body in the thin darkness, where he kept standing behind him with his
sweeping eyes fixed on him. He appeared to him like a clay mound heaved under a
small tree below which he found the ball going to be hidden under the
prevailing darkness of his shadow and the encircling darkness around him. He
made himself fixed behind the man, waiting for him to get up from his prayer.
‘Get the ball, we are not playing anymore.. fetch it, we are going’, shouted a
voice from his playing area. He turned his look to give a way of his
helplessness to his friends and failed as he found his face struggling against
surrounded thick evening to make a show of his expressions.
‘Here is the ball’, a sound
passed through him. A shiver ran across the corners of his body. He felt fear
in him. A will to escape out of the situation compelled him to pick up the ball
from the hand of this unknown man in front of him, before a quick escaping run.
He ran off quickly from the place so as to safely reach his home.
The first work he did after reaching
home was to ponder over the situation he underwent recently. He could not make
out for why the situation even mattered to him. It was something strange for
him although the things were normal. Yet he felt an undercurrent passing
through him mildly. He thought over the matter on and on and never could reach
any point of conclusion where he could have satisfied himself. Somehow he could
get himself out of this chain of thoughts and diverted himself towards some
other problems until the midnight.
He didn’t know that the night was
trying to open the clues, the answers to the set of questions that he had been
through and through since the time he met this man. As midnight approached, it
unveiled the mystery in his sleep, in the form of a dream.
In the dream he saw the face of
the man reaching him out of an aura. Initially he saw a blaze of light radiated
to which he couldn’t resist. He closed his eyes in the dream itself to save his
eyes from the strong light. He did so but couldn’t continue closing the eyes
for a long time fearing that the light might have something more than what he
had feared. He opened his eyes and saw a man in front of him. He was the same
man whom he had met that evening.
Hardly had he known of him. He
had just heard people talking about him. To them he was a saint; a man who had
been alive since the last thousand years, who had obtained auspicious powers
which let him to live all these years. People were also saying that the man has
his life hidden inside this plant which, though looked like a small sapling, but
had the life of thousand years. It was a different kind of tree which was not
found anywhere else on earth. Some whispered too that it was a tree from
heaven.
The fuss and gossips were
frequently resounding inside him and had altogether formed a peculiar image of
the man and the tree in him. But he could not make out why these elements were
the attractions for him and why he was dragged towards the objects on and on, since
the evening that he saw the man accidentally. He never imagined that he would
be meeting him at a situation quite unknown to him. His genuine fear would not
have allowed him for the situation. Even he never expected a dream. But he had
it.
He met the man in that dream, coming
from out of an aura. The man nearing him said, “Don’t be afraid my child. I
came for you as I have something very important to say to you for which I have
been waiting since a long time. It is about the plant. The plant you saw in the
evening is not an ordinary plant. I have been waiting here to say this to you
for years and years. This is a tree that bears golden fruit.”
Namu became surprised in his
dreams. The dream gave him the touch of reality. He had no choice. He listened to
this man who was telling him about the secrets of the plant. He continued, “The
tree came up here as one of the seeds fell off the heaven once long ago. After
a rain it germinated. A few leaves followed. And it started growing. When I was
a child I also dreamed about its origin. I was asked to take care of it as I
was the only soul then who could have seen the yield. I was also told about the
place of the plant and was told to take care of it. I did that and spent my
whole life in a hope to see the golden fruit but failed. I was told then that I
had to continue hoping until my successor arrives one day. This evening I saw
you. You resembled with the exact picture that I was described then of my
successor. So my child, now it’s your turn. May be I failed to experience life
properly for which I was deprived of seeing the fruit on the stem. From
tomorrow onwards, the plant would be yours.”
Saying so, the man vanished.
Namu winked for a moment after
the man went away in his dream. He felt fear and a mild current shrilling his
body. The throbs continued for another few moments, then laid him to a slumber
till morning when he woke up and emerged in his regular routine. He had forgotten
about the last dream until his evening play time came.
When the friends called him for
the game, he remembered the dream that he saw last night. That too led his way
to give clarity to his problems. He was sincerely trying to comprehend about
his recent future while his movement directing him for the plant driven by an
inner force. The surprise was ahead of him.
He found that both the man and
his cottage were absent from the place where he had seen him last evening
before the plant. He even found the plant to have grown up a few metres taller than
what it was the last evening.
He returned back from the place
in anxiety and fear.
The next day same thing repeated
for him. He trailed himself for the plant to cater to his curiosity and saw the
same thing. The plant has grown up a few metres more, though there was no sign
of the man whom he had seen the first evening. This thing continued. He could
not resist himself from going to the place to read about the new changes that
could have occurred to the place or plant. Every day he saw the quick growth of
the plant in the absolute absence of the man. He gradually lost all his fear
and became acquainted with the situation.
The plant kept on growing and so
did Namu as well.
In due course of time Namu took
himself as the heir of the plant and took care of it by watering and guarding
it. The tree became taller and taller to a height that nobody could have tried to
bring damage to its huge trunk but no fruit came upon the tree. Namu also grew
up through the steps of time. He underwent his youth and manhood under its
trunk and lost his years of maturity awaiting the golden fruit.
A time came when Namu had no
work. He left working due to his post matured age. He only had a single work
left – to see (when) the tree bearing him a fruit. During his last tenure of
life, he waited anxiously to see the day when the tree would have brought a
smile to his face by bearing a fruit. But the tree didn’t bring him any fruit.
He became desperate due to his
thought that his time was slipping away from him. His anxiety compelled him to
scold the tree one day. He scolded the tree for why it was proving itself
barren! Why and what mistake of him had been the reason of the tree’s non
yielding attitude. He scolded and chided. And then he cried before the tree. He
cried as an old father wants the child to show him his ability to earn. He
cried and slept under it being tired.
No sooner than he felt the
coolness of the breeze to help his slumber, he heard the voice from the tree to
wake up. He distinctly heard that the tree had voiced to see it. He woke up
definitely but couldn’t know whether he was in the realm of a reality or a
dream. He thought that probably it was in the dream that he had woken up. The
next moment he realized that it was the reality indeed where he had dropped his
slumber.
In between this dilemma, he woke
up and lifted his neck upward towards the sky where he could see the top end of
the tree. His old eyes initially didn’t allow him to stretch his look to the
far end of the top. It was huge and tall. He tried hard to adjust his eye
muscles bringing several more wrinkles to his eyes corners so that he could
have a clear look at the other end of it.
After his painful exercise, he
could see a dazzle atop the tree.
He tried to convince himself that
it was the golden fruit he had seen in actuality. But his non co-operating eyes
didn’t help him to get a firm hold over his thought. He remained unfixed in
between vision and thoughts. Hence he decided to climb to the top where he
could be confirmed of the tree’s first yield.
He started to climb. Despite of
his painful weight of the body, despite of the helpless state of his limbs, he continued
climbing.
He tried hard to get up through
the thick branches and climb up. Every moment a fear was touching him that he
might have a great fall. After climbing for an hour or so, he felt tired and
rested on a branch from where he had a glance over the patch of meadow from
where he started his journey. He couldn’t see the patch clearly. He was panting
and feeling restless, yet his desire to reach and see the golden fruit was
becoming stronger and firm in him. He continued again climbing up over the
branches. He climbed and climbed and felt reaching nearer the fruit.
He became happy. A smile puffed
off his mouth after seeing the glow of the fruit. He smiled again.
That was the last time he was
seen on earth.
A Worthy Life
Anupam Patra
blog- http://anupampatracontemplates.blogspot.in/
Nothing changed about Vikram, during an epoch span of almost four years, who lay like a vegetable on the foldable bed in Cabin No. 11 of Sri J.J. Naidu Hospital, bound to the tubes and pipes galore. His zealous eyes, blinking in quick succession followed by an undue hiatus, suggesting a faint forgetfulness and unmatched intrigue alike, were the only moving organs of his frail form. In a stark contradistinction to his being, everything outside the window always moved and changed in a predestined fashion. In this change there was indeed the sense of freedom due to the ability, of those who moved, to do what they willed. In that way they tormented Vikram, reminding him of how indetachably he was tied to his still fate. But the brazen optimist, that Vikram was, he saw beyond the obvious and noticed how the sun always set at the same distant horizon outside his window, the myna couple alighted at the window near that bed at dawn and chirped loving confessions to each other. But they eventually flew apart in obedience to bereaving obligations, for their survival. He thought of hundreds of men and women who seemed perfectly free, but ran to their mundane servility every day and how even the seasons never changed their course, even if they were beyond the restraining mortal bounds. He had taught himself to believe that nothing in this word enjoyed absolute freedom. Every entity and being is inescapably tied to its destiny under nature's command without fail. This gave Vikram a delusional sense of relief as he considered himself similarly placed as all those perceived free creatures and therefore considered himself free & hence no less endowed than them. Despite such an insensitive interpretation of their purpose by Vikram, the seasons displayed their kindness to him, by offering themselves in a minuscule yet significant ratio to his senses, who otherwise remained deprived of similar pleasures inside the air conditioned cabin. When the rains beat against his window panes, he tricked himself into reminiscing moments from yore when he too had let hundreds of heaven's drops spray on his face. When he saw the winter forcing everyone into increased layers of clothing he too stepped up his ask for woolen stuff to keep him warm. Though the ones he requested , knew very well that it was a gimmick inside a cabin adequately warmed by the ever humming room heater, they nevertheless obliged him . And in the summers he would often pretend to be irritated at the heat, which barely presented itself inside the cool ambience of his cabin.
Over time, Vikram's condition had gotten better and then worsened back. When Vikram was rushed to Sri J.J. Naidu Hospital after his tryst with misfortune on road, he was unable to move a limb, except for his eye lids which blinked to an abstract stimulus felt only to his deepest sense which miraculously remained unhurt and uncrippled by the peripheral damage. The doctors had written him off keeping nobody on any fantasy land about his condition. But who knows the mysterious ways of life. In a span of only six months Vikram had shown a remarkable zeal to get better. His fore limbs had shown intermittent signs of sensitivity and exhibited progress in their sensory motion now and then. But still the doctors could say nothing with certainty about the likelihood of his recovering to a state as normal as before his accident. Since they were palpably aware of the equal probability of his slipping back into a condition which could be worse than the one in which he was priorly. Their fears won as Vikram's condition alarmingly deteriorated within the next couple of months. Most of his body parts stopped responding to treatment. Visitors often witnessed his relatives sobbing just outside the cabin where life played a heart shattering game of hide and seek with his frail and motionless body. Finally on the last Sunday of October, 2010, when winter was just around the corner and he was due to finish his fourth year on the same bed, doctors gave their final word concerning his survival. The prospect of being unable to take back their son home after waiting for almost four endlessly long years, shattered his parents. Their twenty two year old son was going to die and there was absolutely nothing in this whole wide world that could change this reality. They cursed their sordid fate howling and screaming in utter agony.
But Vikram had other plans. He wished to ensure that he'd live on till long, after his life was over. When opportunity presented itself, he seized it with uncanny enthusiasm. He agreed to donate his eyes post his death, at the first instance when he was offered the choice to do so. A part of the reason why he decided on doing such charity was that he was filled with a sense of a vague purpose to see all that he had missed in those four bed ridden years of his life. No one could talk him out of it. He was determined to stay alive after his heart stopped beating. And what better way of going about it than through eyes, the doors to this picturesque world. He'd often fancy about the quintessential treats for eyes, those hued phenomenons of life that he never paid attention to when he was living a regular life. He would, for hours, dwell in those colorful, scenic places that everyone said, existed outside his cabin. It wasn't like Vikram hadn't seen places with vibrant natural imagery. But he believed that his short life robbed him of so much more that he could have witnessed. In donating his vision to another, he pretended to be motivated by an outright desire of serving his own self, howsoever implausible that may have sounded, rather than any intent of being kind hearted and charitable towards the needy. But deep down he was naturally relieved and gladdened by the joy of being able to give someone his eyes back. Laying on that bed, bereft of motion for so long, he had realized the value of relishing life, in his own inability to do so. Vikram dissented when life was nicknamed a gift because nobody knows how good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate, pleasant or horrible, life would ultimately turn out to be. Vikram thought of life more as a chance. A chance at experiencing things, good & bad, loving and hateful, pleasant and horrid, sweet and bitter, comical and frustrating. Diagonally opposite experiences, all of which fill life with undiluted fragrances and make it the mysteriously complex yet worthy experience that it is. He was overwhelmed with a sense of immense pleasure when he thought of donating the source of all that experience, his eyes, to someone who so desperately needed them. Experience was all that his vigorous soul howled for within the confines of his withered mortal frame. Oblivious to the engulfing grief that his folks succumbed to, Vikram lay still, his breathing body rising and falling with a tranquility uncommon to those at the gates of death, his eye balls dancing inside his fast shut eye lids, causing a wonder among sympathizers as to the subject of his dreams.
Vikram wasn't offered a choice. They came together like a surging deluge hurled at infinity sans order or destination, like prison breakers running hither tither, never to return. He saw a string of flashes beginning with those of his memorable childhood days spent mostly in his grandfather's jestful company, his first trek with his father, his mother's embalming glance, faces of his friends who never left his side in good and bad, his beloved Labrador barking impatiently, his father's bike which he stole to give his high school sweetheart a ride, their first nervous and naive kiss on it and then it came. He suddenly felt excruciating difficulty in breathing, he could no more afford to play the hero who did not feel any pain. His eye flung wide open, filled with blood and an unusual amount of redness, and his mouth went gaping and gasping for air. His quintessential smile had deserted him. In that numbing momentary pain he saw the everlasting uncanny smile on his grandfather's face telling him "Everything will be fine, I'm here now". Then in a suddenness known to birds who rocket away at a gunshot, Vikram's life flew out of its mortal prison. There wasn't much wailing heard around the cabin, for their sources had bankrupted themselves with time.
Days later, when the frequency of consoling visitors had declined in Vikram's house, two men, who appeared like father and son came searching for somebody to it. One of them pressed the door bell. Vikram's father answered it and as he powerlessly pulled the door open, he froze upon seeing what he saw. The effect was not similar though on the other side of the door. Vikram's father suddenly appeared to well up with anger and palpable resentment. He kept pushing the man, refusing to hear him, till they reached their gates. He wanted to shout out loud, but before he could say a word, the man before him sunk to his knees and touched the former's feet. He went on and on, relentlessly offering his apologies. He begged Vikram's father for his forgiveness stating how much he hates himself for what he has done. He began weeping inconsolably. Vikram's father was indeed, for a moment swept by a feeling of kindness, but turned his back by saying "Forgiveness is not mine to give". He tried to keep upright his grieving structure as he slowly began walking back. The man behind him shouted "There's one more thing Sir, please, you've got see this...please Sir." And then it struck Vikram's father as he abruptly halted. He took ages to turn around. The man and his companion had now moved inside the gates again, and they were just behind him. Upon turning about, Vikram's father looked at the boy. Moistness welled up in the old man's his eyes. He was speechless, as there was no word in any language, that could have expressed what he felt in that moment. 'Is that.." he blurted. "Wait, this can't be...Are you serious?....Did Vikram know..?", he continued, unable to conceal his amazement. The child's father was nodding approvingly all along. "Being a father myself, I knew you would know... And Yes, Vikram knew where his gift was going" he assured calmly. The child, this time touched the feet of Vikram's father. No part of the latter's body moved. The father son duo walked out as he watched their frames dissolve in the throng.
His wife came out and asked him to join her for the evening tea. Noticing her husband looking at the blank distant, she walked up to him and slowly slid her hand upon his hung shoulder and queried softly 'What happened dear ?' Just then a flock of tired birds flew past their heads, returning to their hanging abodes & awaiting kins, and the dusk seemed not far away. Vikram's father turned to her and said "Nothing my dear" forging a smile from his heart as he battled to escape the flashes from that fateful night when the man who just left their house had rammed his car into their unsuspecting son's back thereby irretrievably crippling his spine. It all made sense to him now. Vikram didn't want the man's son, who also lost his eyes in that incident, to suffer for his father's deeds and the moment he knew he wasn't going to make it, he made sure that his eyes went to that boy. It didn't matter anymore if one casualty of that night could not be salvaged. He ensured that the other got back his precious vision and his life. Vikram may have died after living a short life, but it sure was a worthy life. Needless to say he won the deal of immortality, for he'd be eternally remembered by the boy and in the memories that he'd pass on. Remembering his wive's question Vikram's father thought to himself "How could I tell you my love, here stood the man who caused the life out of our son and with him stood the boy who looked at me with the eyes that our son gave him." and glanced at the heavens as if to say " I'm proud of you."
*********
Another fairy-tale
Bijaylaxmi Sarangi
Cuttack
She was fairly tired of playing at a single place. It was her elder sister who prevented her from moving even a step ahead right from that place. They were seated under a banyan tree at the upper right side of the canal. All other kids had vanished from eye sight. Only few women were taking dip, down the canal along with their earthen pots. The canal makes most of their living. Their father like many others catches fish from the canal on regular basis. That too is a great source of merriment for the kids like her. She is nearly eight years of old. Her parents and only sister Rini calls her by the name Sini. She attends a local school like her elder sister who is in a bigger class than her. She is jealous of her elder sister due to her relatively stronger position at home. She has been instructed by their parents to obey Rini Di all the time. It was such a bitter thing for her to always carry out orders of Rini Di. Such a tyrant Rini Di is not letting her go down the canal, she murmured. Rini Di usually remains away from her during day time as then she attends her bigger class where all the big girls study with her. Then she gets all the time to be a tail of her mother. When mother goes down the canal to take her afternoon dip and to get water for casual use, Sini follows her. There, she plays with the stray puppies, muddy sand, pebbles and also with other kids available there until mother finishes her regular afternoon dip. Today, she is missing that regular joy. Today she finds herself as a hostage of Rini Di.
She is missing her mother so much that in a large frequency tears are rolling off her chicks. She can't remember the last day when her mother was away from home and Rini Di was in charge of her. She hated staying with Rini Di whole day long, who is much matured a girl than that of her age. She, in the absence of mother keeps house clean and also cooks rice pudding. Today she has prepared such rice pudding for her. Sini appreciates the only thing in her sister is that she makes delicious rice pudding that no one in the whole universe can ever be able to make such special pudding; not even their mother. But today she is denying to take rice pudding. She is very much hungry, it is as blatant as the moving shade of the banyan tree. Yet she is firm at her determination not to eat pudding prepared by Rini Di. Because Rini Di is preventing her from moving freely and also she is not taking her to the canal bank even though they are sitting very near to the canal. Their house is too small for playing. Their parents often move a little bent in their one room hut to avoid hitting their heads on the thatched roof. It is a little dark for having no windows; yet it is the luxurious most place of relaxation as a heaven can be for the family. Since no activities other than eating and sleeping can be done inside the house, they had all the permission to play within twenty meters from their hut. The cemented floor under the banyan tree was the best place for playing, sleeping and also finishing the school home works. It is the most lighted place even during night as it gets light from the street lamp on both sides and and from a near by shop. During night their mother cooks rice and curry in front of their hut and father accompanies both the sisters to their regular place of sitting, relaxing and studying, that is near the big banyan tree. When the two sisters finish reading their school books, father usually tells stories of ghosts and fairies. Both of them get immersed in the stories for a long period even forgetting their post studies hunger until mother calls for dinner. Rainy season makes their regular life much difficult as most of the time they remain inside the tiny hut and mother affords food with much difficulty by cooking under polythene cover.
But it is winter, a very pleasant season. Yet she is the hostage of Rini Di. She can't do what she wishes to do in the absence of mother. When Rini Di was preparing pudding, she secretly grabbed two puppies to arrange a marriage ceremony for them. She was the groom's mother who was to welcome her daughter-in- law her home. So she tied the groom puppy with a stump and took the other puppy down the canal alone and bathed that puppy with canal water. She was about to take her would be daughter-in-law towards her groom son, when being informed by a woman taking bath in the canal Sini Di came infuriated. By freeing the damp puppy from her hand she dragged her by her ear to the hut where she would take rice pudding. Sini is crying vociferously. It was beyond Rini Di's tricks to make her stop crying. It is not new for Rini to see her sister Sini making puppies wedding by tieing them together. Even she has joined with her in the interesting play many a times before. And they have also organised feast on that event. But today she is irritated by the site of the mischievous deed of her sister. She even can't stand if Sini argues with her. As yet she had slapped Sini on her face thrice. Sini was also adamant with her decision of not taking even a little of rice pudding from Rini Di until mother comes. Rini who also was not in a mood to coax her sister, told in an uninterested voice that she has to take rice pudding prepared by her every day. Suddenly Sini was silent with a shock. "What! are you not going school any more?"
Rini replied with a shaky voice "no princes, I am not going your school anymore. From today onward I will be your caretaker." She began weeping. Wiping off Rini Di's tears Sini wondered why she can't go to school anymore! Rini said with a low voice, "we are very poor in this big town, Mother has also to work along with father to feed both of us. She would not be home during the day time. Father was telling that I have read enough and should take care of your studies and take care of you instead of going to school." Both the sisters for a while were looking outside vacantly from the bamboo door of their hut. There was a strange silence as if that was some marooned land and two girls unknown to each other are fallen from above from different places of earth! Suddenly Rini pinched her hand. Both the sisters smiled towards each other. As Sini was taking her pudding, Rini began telling the story of Cinderella which is written beautifully on an old water bottle she once got laid on the canal bank and which she had been using as her school water bottle as yet. Now she is handing over her pet bottle to Rini. She can use the bottle as her own which was pretty a matter of pride for her. Poor Cinderella was asking about her mother to a tiny speaking bird on the branch of a tree. The two sisters were peeping outside as the speaking bird was sitting right on the drumstick plant near their hut. Four tiny eyes sparkled with joy as they would ask speaking bird the exact time of arrival of their mother.
Easy
With ease I make a million flowers bloom,
All at once I light up some suns, moons, stars,
In a passing whim I blow out the moonlight
(Remember that moonlight?) or the sunlight (remember that too?).
Don't believe a thing my detractors say.
They might say that I am a child or a fool,
or a magician, ---
Ragged tents, broken drums, patches
on his black coat, but look what a deadly dance he's dancing
on the pupils of her eyes, onlookers aren't fooled, they laugh
but the girl will hear no reason oh how she ails from this dose
of illusion;---Don't believe them.
Hey you revilers, look,
look with what ease I hold up the three worlds---
on the little finger of my left hand.
The darkness, the seas, hills all look on amazed,
You, only you, have forgotten the language of surprise!
Come on into my house, and see what a wondrous house I keep.
The roof overhead---see, but no walls have I on the sides,
(Bounded by walls all round, dreams and phlegm in your hearts,
marking age on your fingers, drawing fancy pictures on walls,
carefully you guys will live!)
While look in my house breezes of all kinds
like faithful retainers move around, brush away cobwebs,
test colors on cornices, busy day and night.
I sit in my wall-less room and paint on the girl's pupils,
Much easier this than making pictures without.
Go back, you revilers, you are foolish children, and you,
Don't believe them when they call me magician.
[Translated from Bengali poem 'Sahaj' by Nandini Gupta]
Courtesy- Poemhunter.com
Ash
Jayanta Mahapatra
The substance that stirs in
my palm
could well be a dead man; no need
to show surprise at the dizzy acts of wind.
My old father sitting uncertainly three feet away
is the slow cloud against the sky:
so my heart's beating makes of me a survivor
over here where the sun quietly sets.
The ways of freeing myself:
the glittering flowers, the immensity of rain for example,
which were limited to promises once
have had the lie to themselves. And the wind,
that had made simple revelation in the leaves,
plays upon the ascetic-faced vision of waters;
and without thinking
something makes me keep close to the walls
as though I was afraid of that justice in the shadows.
Now the world passes into my eye:
the birds flutter toward rest around the tree,
the clock jerks each memory towards
the present to become a past, floating away
like ash, over the bank.
My own stirrings like the wind's
keep hoping for the solace that would be me
in my father's eyes
to pour the good years back on my;
the dead man who licks my palms
is more likely to encourage my dark intolerance
rather than turn me
toward some strangely solemn charade:
the dumb order of the myth
lined up in the life-field,
the unconcerned wind perhaps truer than the rest,
rustling the empty, bodiless grains.
