Teesta Review: A
Journal of Poetry, Volume 8, Number 2. November 2025. ISSN: 2581-7094
Kite
on a Calcutta Sky
---
Partha Banerjee
All
those kites are imperfectly square
All
of the kites are sheer clear light,
All
of'em are made with some throwaway paper
Flimsy,
brittle, kitschy, never handled with care,
They
sleep in a dingy dump on top of each other
They
catch a bad cold 'n sneeze all too easy –
Their
mothers are orphans and dads are too busy.
They
don't fly like the Chinese kites do
With
deadly dragons painted in bottle green and red,
Drawing
fierce roars and moans causing envy too
When
an annual flying contest will be TV-reported,
Or
huge 'Merkan structures they need three men to lift
Toys
their competitions dread.
Calcutta
on a digny danky mid-September dusk
When
the sky colors practically misty bluish musk,
With
clay oven smoke-tinged coal, copper 'n zinc
Some
others believe it could be lead or arsenic,
When
the sun dives down perpendicular fast
And
takes a hard tranquilizer to rush back to bed.
Some
boy of thirteen who had roti mud and grass
Rice
and reddish dal with a smack of dark ash,
Risen
from his mom’s kitchen’s dilapidated urn
And
the boy named Stupid has enough of sunburn.
Snuck
up on top of his landlord's tin roof
With
a thief's naughty grin, and with both hoofs,
He
huffed and he puffed and he paused for a second
Looked
down 'n 'round, to mason measure 'n reckon,
His
string wheel's up there the hole he shoved last night
Hidden
behind the stack of charcoal a purple peacock kite.
Quickly
made the string spindle with swift nifty fingers
Pressed
it with his left hand to weigh its proper shine,
Connected
with a hundred yards of his glass-powdered twine
With
a fling off his right hand he gave it a free flight.
Whoosh...
Off
it goes away, way up high it flies
Dances
like a ballerina with glass slipper moves,
Delicate
and soft and undulating curves
High...high...way
high…up up up there…
On
the misty gray and smokey bluish old Calcutta sky.
We
Have Lived the Way We Could
---
Partha Banerjee
An extra layer of bricks was laid on the mezzanine steps
Crippled
old aunt crawls downstairs at her own whimsy will,
The
only window they have finds some plastic purple grapes
hanging
from a small tub sitting on its sill;
When
someone knocks, a beep light comes on in the room –
The
maid’s taking a leisurely nap on a handmade floor mat
The
light tells her to get up and open the creaky door
Receive
the guest, which she does with no special format.
Khukumani
jumps off from her kindergarten bus
With
a big smile. It’s four thirty o’clock.
The
milk cream is set aside in the ceramic bowl,
Patiently
waits also the slender, sleepy cat.
We
had a tube light in our North Calcutta home
It
turned orange on both sides of it
When
we pressed the push switch, as hard as we could –
Desperate
effort to prove live at the master’s diktat.
And
the floor was painted red – ancient sign of noble
Course
nobody can tell no more if it’s red or late blight,
If
it’s even algae or mold grown out of rain.
Nobody
paid no attention to the status of the flat.
But
everyone said, “Look, the color of their floor was red.”
Fancy,
respectable!
“A
Brahmin family, indeed!” They said,
And
the discussion ended at that.
My
mother lay in that bed thin and prostrate
Before
she breathed her last breath, and left,
My
father spent years there dusting the wedding photo
Framed
atop the wooden box of hat;
Their
August wedding and Dad’s passing were the same date –
Well,
maybe, who knows if they were rumors or wrought,
But
ain’t it only beautiful to picture such a fate
For
what could be so wrong with that simple, noble thought?
We
have all lived through in whatever way we could
This
is our precious life – you can gossip, bill or chat.
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Bio:
Dr. Partha
Banerjee is a New York-based
activist-writer, poet and educator. His political books are well known. He has
also translated and published famous Bengali short stories into English, and
published two Bengali poetry books and one English book entitled Twilight in a
Tangle, published by Rubric Publications, Delhi. Partha now frequently visits
his hometown Kolkata.
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