Soliloquy

For Nababharati, Barasat

You walked up the stairs and bumped into the bureau
Dusty with years of disuse and borne with files-
Torn and shredded- and paid a muted obeisance to
The years of your childhood. Change was underway.
Alive, the sanctum santorum, stored away from the
Prying eye, held its benevolent gaze across the house
Untormented by mold or the soaking dampness.

The unhappiness of the afternoons was brought to
The fore by the joyful remembrances of the evening.
You felt stifled sitting on the verandah with
Your feet up and snooped upon by the vendors
Selling ash-gourd. Wakeful cries of ‘cha-na-chur!’
At sundown came alive only when the phuchka-seller
Could be heard over the snoring dogs mid-street.

You held the door open downstairs and wondered
If duplicity needed to be dealt with as humane a touch.
As if time had chosen to lumber past your insecurities
With the healing touch of a peaceful touch-me-not,
You walked past its greetings without needing to be
Told what came next. Inelegant in your countenance
And unhappy with worshipping at the altar, you ran.

The cold swept in unannounced, as did the genteel
Rhythms of the windswept morning the day after you
Ran. Vowels ploughed into opened ground and
The verbose of the city left indelible marks –
Vulnerable to the sounds of the planes overhead –
It added up with the altruism of a sense of humour.
You faltered near the epicentre of such power.

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