Editor’s note: These poems explore the essence of the human experience through vivid imagery and emotional depth. Reflections on loss and love, and societal tragedies, Bhaumik’s poems masterfully combine the mundane with the profound, inviting readers to contemplate the transient nature of existence and the beauty found in ordinary moments.

I stub the day in the ashtray 

and look at the roundness of the sun

dramatically poised, 

ready to script its timeless tale of victory

reddening the Arabian Sea,

creating the trappings of an epiphany for a poet,

a timely click for an opportunistic photographer,

winding up work with a bidi stuck in his mouth  for a daily labour,

patiently counting each day, seeking salvation through rosary beads for a wrinkled grandma,

handing me my coffee with a familiar gummy smile, rushing through kitchen chores

in her hyphenated world, for Savitri.

Some mythology suggests Savitri as the daughter of ‘Savitr’ or the Sun god. 

Some others say, Savitri might have been a Hindu princess ...whether or not, has never mattered.

The sun and our Savitri are akin, speak the same dialect,

a perennial life force; proving their worth everyday. 

The war and victory jostling for space in local train,

the dream city and luxury apartments luring her out of her damp shanty, the colourful buckets of water, steel almirah, her spicy kitchen. 

Her round bindi, determined and proud, sitting in between the brows

lighting up her face, nosepin, her sunflower printed synthetic saree, neatly tucked in 

the overworked tongue wagging —

words jetting out like teeming crowd at Bandra Station 

Savitri is the common noun and proper noun of her ilk and family.

A day in the wetness of September, our living room and kitchen fell silent 

The television and its barrage of news 

petrol price, padyatra, Covid comeback, GDP growth, municipal elections and so on. 

Then they referred her as sister of ‘Nirbhaya’

—  face not shown, neither any name flashed, 

she would have loathed such anonymity, I’m quite sure.

There were candle marches and memorials.

I did not attend any, stayed aloof. 

Long after, when shock and horror ripples had subsided 

I met her brother to visit the station washroom where it happened 

It was unbelievable as how she could be tamed therein and bled to death !!!

But sometimes, strange things happen and changes the way we view the sun again.

A vowel falls in the quicksand of time, becomes a fruit 

— an orange 

You think of marmalade —

your tongue circles around the curvature of the night to taste it.

The rhythm of our breath, the quest of tangibles to reach a place that shimmers like a mirage makes cities and civilisations melt in  our mouth 

An obelisk stands, piercing the passion of the flesh, connecting the carnal with the eternal.

An origami bird flies away with a fairytale in its beak

The swishing sound of an omen traverses a dusty road.

You and I rush past each other through narrow alleys that do not take us anywhere

Days and years ride on a Ferris wheel 

The ornate mirror of our room trembles with the tale of love and betrayal

A cartload of wish gets reduced to snatches of dreams that slip through our fingers like water.

Night is an oval locket of lapis lazuli.

Its colour pales  with the first tinge of orange on the eastern horizon.

A vowel transforms itself into a colour, brings forth another day.

 

‘A postman delivers a legal notice.

A storm rages through the western sky. 

A bird nest falls from a high branch of a tree.

A child woman trembles within.’ 

Music becomes lullaby 

                              for a lonely grown up like me.                   

The tune travels far...

                            far till it becomes a dandelion,       

              sails away to another land 

         where quaint old balconies with stories     

                 hanging down; greet in silence.

I meet old friends and neighbours.

                    ambling along or passing by, 

     speaking a  language that paints 

             the canvas of early days 

 our lane, the nearby park, its turnstile gate, 

the broken glass of my grandma's bedside window,

                light filtering in, 

  the noisy backyard, our hopscotch evenings. 

   Time that has slipped by 

                                  ghost walk in my eyes.

      I turn over to the other side of sleep 

        

         Sorrow, like succulents, has propagated     

       I put them in some other ceramic pots 

          call them ‘hurt’ or ‘loss’ or ‘loneliness’         

        An unopened white envelope looks like a          

                            corpse

     its lifeless body lying on the bedside table

 The heart cringes, 

                                 stands still near a cliff. 

   A cloud of anticipation spills a dense silence,             

        spreads the musk of my lost 

                         h e a r t b e a t s.

I remember myself being there months ago, 

till the shrunken city had no place for the two of us . 

It grew smaller like a balloon losing its gas, diminishing, 

becoming a crumpled mess 

in my room that I struggled to tidy up,

but it followed me like a shadow through lonely tram tracks at night 

skirting around the silence of Dalhousie Square, our office para, 

sitting on the dusty steps of giant buildings that bustle with busy footsteps on working days of the week,

the haze of neon lights chronicling  the saga of the fatigued roads and parks and boulevards,

the muddy waters of Hooghly lapping my feet 

in the wee hours of dawn 

making me realize that I was searching for and fleeing from all that the city held for us.

I remember the sultriness of the city splitting, scattering, 

the rage of ‘kalboisakhi’ lashing against the greyish windowpane, while you and I marvelled at how our tongues turned out to be cartographers,

the storm in us lasting beyond the madness of  April showers. 

And just when we let words like ‘permanence’ and ‘commitment’ trickle in 

that a lid blew off, prompting us to seek asylum in old friends and pubs, 

a sudden urge to tone up the muscles, look fitter, 

denying pain just as a young boy denies pain on the soccer field lest he appears less of a man to his playmates.

That lasted for sometime, till my eyes saw you everywhere, 

I screamed, went out on dates, only to return to the absence of your body musk.

Finally on a rainless night, I quit.

Kalboisakhi: Norwester; para: neighbourhood; Dalhousie Square: downtown area of Kolkata; Hooghly: Kolkata stands on the banks of River Hooghly. 

Tea is a verb for us, 

a ‘doing word’ — well, that’s how I teach 

verb to my younger students.

The first cup and our vocabulary sprouts

filling up the awkward spaces of inertia

creating conversation over this and that,

charting the course of the day for 

two people — boring, monotonous,

who, in their midlife have 

nothing more to share.

 

Tea becomes a verb 

after a tiring day when we sit in front

of the television,

news channels, IPL, reality shows grab 

our attention 

as we take sips from our blue cups, 

removing the veil of wordless aridity,

till the ping pong of words 

populate the room,

and we exclaim, feel aghast, wonder,

talk animatedly as to who would win,

till our eyes dim. 

We retire to bed

sleep like two continents.