Teesta Review:
A Journal of Poetry, Volume 2, Number 1. May 2019. ISSN: 2581-7094
Homecoming In 2015
Sixteen years.
I find that the primary color is blue.
Red is as rare as the sight
of cherries here.
I have of course grown:
curves filled out, and so must
drape myself in dark hues
to recapture the erstwhile slender.
Now, people wonder at
the missing vermillion in
the parting of my hair.
Sixteen years.
My childhood playmates
have school-going children.
My parents slouch and hobble.
I browse shops for hair dyes.
There are unfamiliar faces
in the park.
Sixteen years.
I see College Street through
my father's eyes:
I have no memory.
I try to connect, turning
strangers into acquaintances
who know me not.
I go for a boat ride on the Hooghly,
a tourist in my birthplace.
Outside my window, I'm missing
an Arabian Sea.
I find that the primary color is blue.
Red is as rare as the sight
of cherries here.
I have of course grown:
curves filled out, and so must
drape myself in dark hues
to recapture the erstwhile slender.
Now, people wonder at
the missing vermillion in
the parting of my hair.
Sixteen years.
My childhood playmates
have school-going children.
My parents slouch and hobble.
I browse shops for hair dyes.
There are unfamiliar faces
in the park.
Sixteen years.
I see College Street through
my father's eyes:
I have no memory.
I try to connect, turning
strangers into acquaintances
who know me not.
I go for a boat ride on the Hooghly,
a tourist in my birthplace.
Outside my window, I'm missing
an Arabian Sea.
Red Lights At Amsterdam
I enter a lane, where
(the tour guide tells me),
the church to my left --
Gothic, dark, sombre ---
is 600 years old;
the profession to my right
featuring windows with red lights
is 800.
The city awakens at night
serving up the body
adorned as a temple of Venus
to all those who throng.
I am confused: it does not seem wrong.
The worshippers, thirsting, offering
carnal flowers to the goddesses,
dazzling in heavy August satin.
I have now seen beauty forbidden in this
molten world of shimmering faces
and neon eye shadows
lined behind glass windows.
I look at the lips that smile and greet
and call. I feel inadequate and small.
(the tour guide tells me),
the church to my left --
Gothic, dark, sombre ---
is 600 years old;
the profession to my right
featuring windows with red lights
is 800.
The city awakens at night
serving up the body
adorned as a temple of Venus
to all those who throng.
I am confused: it does not seem wrong.
The worshippers, thirsting, offering
carnal flowers to the goddesses,
dazzling in heavy August satin.
I have now seen beauty forbidden in this
molten world of shimmering faces
and neon eye shadows
lined behind glass windows.
I look at the lips that smile and greet
and call. I feel inadequate and small.
Desires, Or Baring My Heart To Nikita
(for Nikita Parik)
(for Nikita Parik)
1
The first time I went to Rajasthan,
I was in my mother's womb;
and I don't know enough biology
to recall if I caught a glimpse
of Jaipur through the keyhole
of the navel.
You were yet to be born.
The second time, I was twenty-one --
the city puzzled, dazzled, frazzled me…
shocking pink-red as if painted
by spurting blood from the veins…
and then the mirror and the jewels
of the palaces gleaming in the October sun.
The air was the color of sand
and in my dry throat I felt your land.
2
I became friends with a woman,
her head covered with a veil red
and bangles from shoulders to wrists.
I have a photograph with her to prove
I am not a snob from a family of Bengali priests.
I went to a shop and bought
pale lavender lacquer bangles
with tiny engraved mirrors in which
I caught a glimpse of my eyes open wide
and uncertain forehead.
I, a woman scorned by all
can wear lavender bangles, but am barred
by tradition and principles
to cover my head
or adorn my wrists
in gorgeous shades
of red.
3
Pink and red and jewels and sand…
Nikita, the blue sky over your ancestral land
is a veil over this desert Shanghri-la --
the near-sacred city
of mysterious desires
forbidden to a woman fallen…
The first time I went to Rajasthan,
I was in my mother's womb;
and I don't know enough biology
to recall if I caught a glimpse
of Jaipur through the keyhole
of the navel.
You were yet to be born.
The second time, I was twenty-one --
the city puzzled, dazzled, frazzled me…
shocking pink-red as if painted
by spurting blood from the veins…
and then the mirror and the jewels
of the palaces gleaming in the October sun.
The air was the color of sand
and in my dry throat I felt your land.
2
I became friends with a woman,
her head covered with a veil red
and bangles from shoulders to wrists.
I have a photograph with her to prove
I am not a snob from a family of Bengali priests.
I went to a shop and bought
pale lavender lacquer bangles
with tiny engraved mirrors in which
I caught a glimpse of my eyes open wide
and uncertain forehead.
I, a woman scorned by all
can wear lavender bangles, but am barred
by tradition and principles
to cover my head
or adorn my wrists
in gorgeous shades
of red.
3
Pink and red and jewels and sand…
Nikita, the blue sky over your ancestral land
is a veil over this desert Shanghri-la --
the near-sacred city
of mysterious desires
forbidden to a woman fallen…
such as me.