Written by Tathagata Banerjee
It rained a little today…
Some water drops are still left on my balcony.
I’m making friends with the afternoon sun rays
And my palm is full of clouds that
Have always only collected melancholia.
Grief is grief-stricken,
Blindness crawls through the window pane,
And accumulates on the porch
With the meaningless bravado of a winner
Returning from a bloodthirsty battle.
Ghalib, your mirror collects dust still, poet
It feels good sometimes to just willfully
Mistake old emotions with something akin to love
Like Van Gogh, I’ve painted abstract imageries
On a nostalgic canvas.
My front yard is drowned completely.
I’ve never met Shakespeare in my life.
In the middle of the day,
Like sleep, the practice of
Trying to stay oblivious wraps me around.
Silence. This is nice.
Evening runs in. The meadows are under water.
Old telephone reminiscences about some stories
That only it had known
And follows dusty roads that lead to
An abandoned tramline
“We have to cancel the Christmas plans this year,
Something important came up. You understand…”
Conversations end. Roads end.
Busy city becomes a habit, slowly
Paper boats are floating in the stagnant water.
Like a blind person who’s desperate to find
A hint of light,
I throw my arms all around, in an attempt
To be able to touch Sartre or Kierkegaard.
Someone calls out from below,
“How is everything?”
I dive deep into the muddy waters and then,
Stand up and say, “Ghalib, I’m not well.”
