Eraser

After you left,
I changed the sheets
Of the bed,
You slept on.
One simple act,
Erasing all signs
Of your presence,
So deftly,
As if you never came.

Only, if I could change,
Something about my heart,
As cleverly,
To return in time,
When I didn't know you,
And life was simpler.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

The bonsai

I watched fascinated.
The bonsai orange tree
At the exhibition,
Flaunting
Glossy green leaves,
And enticingly juicy fruits,
Stunted,
Yet so complete.
As if it's dwarfed perfection
taunting,
My full grown life
With its branches of thoughts,
And wishes,
Pruned systematically,
Everyday.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

The journey

The narrow road
Winding up, ambitiously,
Towards the misty blue hills,
Perhaps, I imagined,
Torn between a longing
To get lost,
Somewhere between
Existence, and the sublime.
I wondered,
For a while,
Are all life's journeys
As promiscuous,
Yet exciting,
As tedious,
Yet inescapable,
Who awaits me
With open arms,
At the end?
© 2009 Rituparna Das

The cat

Distractedly combing,
Through the narrow,
Overstuffed, and dusty,
Alleyways,
Of an old antique shop,
Two burning eyes,
Carved out of a wooden cat,
Arrested my aimless loitering.
I stood there hypnotized,
Unable to move,
As if possessed by their desire,
To derive every breath,
Every drop of life,
Running through my veins.
As if the cat,
Wanted to come alive.

Poor lifeless creature,
Only if it knew,
That this body,
Is an artful feigner,
Carrying a soul,
Colder than a dead man's.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Colours

She sat sprawled
Regally
On the carpet,
With such serious contentment,
On a face
Less than
Three years old,
Crayons, in all possible shades
Scattered here and there,
Scribbling furiously,
Nothing and everything,
The scripture of happiness,
In the language of rainbow.

Envious,
I begged for some colours
To be infused
In my black, white and grey
Earthly existence
Wrapped in silence.
As if understanding my plight,
She looked at me disdainfully
Just for a second,
And returned to her cosmic world.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

I am envious of writers like Vikram Seth and Jhumpa Lahiri....envious of their power to lend such effortless grace to everyday mundane objects and happenings.

Changes

I've changed
My brand of shampoo,
After you left behind yours,
Mistakenly, perhaps.
I like to believe,
It suits me fine,
Your scent on me,
Everyday, bath after bath.
It fills up the emptiness,
That you left behind,
Deliberately.

The other evening,
After such a bath,
Invigorated,
Thus somewhat gutsy,
I picked up the phone,
To let you know, so.
And found,
You've changed your SIM.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

At the airport

Rotten luck
Follows me around.

The other day,
At the airport waiting lounge,
While trying to drown
My impatience,
In deafening,
Mp3 versions
Of my favourite music,
An announcement of a flight,
To your city,
Surreptitiously slipped in,
Between two songs,
Robbing me off the simple pleasure,
Of knowing,
That I'd be home soon.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

You

While the world, appreciates,
My efforts in poetry writing,
The 'you' in most of them,
Sits somewhere, oblivious,
Of their existence,
Probably watching TV.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Winner

I sit down to write,
Everyday,
With the world in my head.
Countless
Faces, objects, words, ideas,
Jostling to be at my finger tips.

I sit down to write,
Everyday,
With you in my heart.
Singular.
Omnipresent.
Winning everytime, effortlessly.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Night after night

Every night,
Just as I shut my eyes,
I will my subconsciousness,
To dream about you.

Every night,
Just as you do in real life,
Whenever I am around,
You quickly bypass my dreams.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

The perfume bottle

The perfume bottle
Lies shattered on the floor,
Bits and pieces
Of scented glass,
Like sea shells,
Beneath my bare feet,
The air intoxicated,
With the fragrance,
Of an evening,
Spent long back,
By the sea,
Warm and salty.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Two lives

In the dying embers,
Of the once brilliant bonfire,
We let our longing burn,
Little by little,
Slowly, gently, painstakingly,
All night long.
As the black moonless sky,
Faded into grey,
We collected the ashes,
Tenderly,
And gifted it to the blue river,
Promising to meet again,
In another lifetime,
We then retraced our steps,
To the warmth
Of our separate homes,
Empty and cold.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

A day

Lately,
My days have
Collectively graduated, to
An eternal wait.
Each nano-second, has taken
A gigantic proportion, that of a second,
A second of a minute,
A minute of an hour.

I wish,
I was aware, of
This boundless vastness of time,
A few days back,
When we had just a day,
At our reluctant will.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Hi

Today,
Like many other days,
I spoke out boldly,
Every word, I have always
Wanted you to know.
In my head.

Today, again,
Like all other days,
In your bewitching presence,
I could just about painfully extract,
One, single, pathetic, 'hi',
From the bottom of my wasted heart.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Packing

Suitcases carefully digited,
Bags zipped up, I stood
At the end of my obligatory visit,
A guilty sense of relief
Lurking in me,
Amidst the hurried goodbyes.

As I took off to the sky,
A rueful realization, gently clipped
My winged thoughts of freedom,
Inspite of such meticulous packing,
I left behind
That one thing, dearer than most,
My heart,
In a place I once called home.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Pondering

Like a lifeless
Arm of a tree,
Dismembered
From its parent trunk,
Lately, my thoughts too
Have dislodged themselves
From yours,
To occasional melancholy.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

The night train

Sleepless on a night train,
Heartbroken and tearless,
My restlessness strays outside,
At the engulfing blackness.
A lone star,
Bright and silver,
Somewhere near the dissolved horizon,
Venus, perhaps. Constant.
Sleep seeps in, finally, sensing,
As I move further away from you
In miles,
In time,
You would lay awake, forever,
With me in your eyes.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

The space between us

Between you and I,
There lies a tranquil,
Lake of silence,
Rippled now and then,
By stolen glances,
And quickened heartbeats.

Between you and I,
Lies a tumultuous ocean,
Of words,
Commonplace, vain,
Raging undercurrents of passion,
Churning beneath non-chalance.

Between you and I,
Spreads a furious wildfire,
Everyday, stopping nowhere,
Our souls ravenously consumed,
Charred beyond salvation,
Mute and hopeless, forever.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Revisited bylanes

Meandering through
The shabby bylanes,
Of the big old city,
In pursuit
Of a less congested
Travel time,
Sweating profusely
In an ancient yellow cab,
I peered despondently
At the world outside,
The neatly queued up
Rickety rickshaws,
The air reeking
With the pungency
Of fried fish, and mustard oil
The heat,
The streetdogs,
The jostling crowd,
The confusion,
Strangely I started to relax.

Still some distance away
From my clean, lofty,
Airconditioned, apartment living,
I was comfortable.
As if I was home.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Admission

Driving bumpily,
Along this infrequently trodden way,
Through the deep dark forest,
Where the past gets lost forever,
With each turn,
And the future lurks ahead,
Recklessly uncertain,
I breathe in the present
Deeply, letting it overtake
My sinews,
For once I don't deny,
That you still linger in my memory,
Detached from the unsettled past,
And an unsure future.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Bittersweet surrender

On a rainy evening,
As the blue mist
Comes down the hills,
To nestle before my eyes,
And the air around,
Pregnant with the sweet scent
Of cardamom,
Enticing my otherwise
Peaceful existence,
To a turbulent longing,
That is difficult to contain,
Yet so impossible to contravene,
I finally do away with my
Decided restrain, in despair,
And settle down cozily, with your
Bittersweet memories.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Heaven and hell

A shimmering silver wing,
Floating above
A blanket of tattered cotton wool,
Some pristine white,
The rest with a buttery glow
From the dazzling sunlight,
I sat caught in this magic,
Staring dreamily,
Through the oval aperture
Adjoining my window seat,
Almost starting to believe
In heaven.

A casual captains voice
Crackling on the PA system,
A steady weightless descent,
A cruel thud invaded my reverie,
You have left,
No one awaits me,
Only,
A hell of a city.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

The moon

We don't talk anymore.
Distance and time
Have taken it's toll.
Your face has faded
Long back,
Your words have lost their sheen,
By repeated reminiscence.
You are no longer,
Constantly in my thoughts.
I don't miss you
These days.

Yet, the other night,
I saw a brilliant silver moon,
And caught myself wishing,
That you see it too,
I imagined a tug,
From the otherside of the night,
Making myself believe,
That I was in your thought.
© 2009 Rituparna Das

Nostalgia

Last night
I visited the home
Where I grew up.
In my dreams.
Everything was the same.
The ancient banyan tree
In the backyard,
The mossy outer walls
Of the old house,
The water hyacinth infested
Shallow pond,
Where people still take dips
In the small clearing,
On sweltering summer days,
And that road,
That goes by its side,
Still leads to the same
Tea stall,
Where this sweet concoction
Once fuelled countless debates,
On bitter cold winter evenings
Of my reckless youth.
As if time stands still.

Even in my dreams,
I was uncomfortable.
My allegiance
Like always,
Rested precariously on my mind.
Just as nostalgia
Was about to tip off the scale,
I woke up,
Somewhat relieved,
To my big city grey morning.
© 2009 Rituparna Das