A tea tale

'Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage'...somewhere in between it became poetry. And so, 

When you were hungry
I felt parched.
Sprawling in the winter sun,
I peeled you
seedless and juicy,
lingering in the sauciness
over a parched skin.

A dry throat,
and a dry tongue later-
I dunked you
in my tea,
warmed by a ravishing Orange sun.

My cells exploded
my blood screamed,
as I drunk your drunkeness-
You stayed,
embedded in a thousand and one cells.

The tea flushed out,
a book ended,
you and I,
we Facebooked.

( Picture from the Internet)

© 2013 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

Memories of November

My land now far removed
where innocence died,
and you flourished.

Yet the smells remain,
clinging and never forgotten.
Like snakes twirling in toilets,
bent on proving their sterileness
cohabiting a space so dense-

In the Bulbul's twitch,
of Luit and its silence
of dogs and stray cats,
wandering in, like love.
Leaving you and coming back-
strays, forever straying.

Of headiness of April rains,
of the naked austerity of Patkai,
the unknown languages of streams,
of the red earth-

there
I lie scattered.

-© 2014 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Photograph courtesy Bhagyajit Bhuyan)

Where poetry ended and you began..who knows

Reading up on books that talk of your soil and smell of your own language can be heady..but then one must know how to smell, in between the pages, between the lines, even between the words, to find oneself there..and I have been waiting to feel you so long, where poetry ended and you began, who knows.

'Suddenly I saw Pakhi standing by my desk. The moment I saw her I realized, this is what I had been waiting for. Yes no point trying to hide it. I felt I had made her appear with the force of my longing- She had no choice, she could not have done otherwise. So I was not surprised, I said nothing, I only looked at her in silence.

Pakhi was the first one to speak. I remember her words clearly.

"I'm a lady. You should stand up when you see me"
I stood up obediently.
"Reading so  late in the night?"
"I glanced at the fat, open book in response."
"Are you up only to read?"

My head lowered itself in guilt. There was a silent pause. I could hear the ticking of the clock in the next room. There was one more sound, probably a sound in my heart, a strange one.'

As I read, in the distance of the neighbourhood plays 'Chompa Chameli..' and somehow I am home, where you are..where I reside

( Conversation lines from, 'My kind of girl' By Buddhadeva Basu- Translated By Arunava Sinha)

From one book to another

And a part of you came today
the most beautiful part perhaps?
dipped in the ink of your caress,
you, for whom I shall wait
by some shadows and some light
some day,
where your talk and mine will be meaningless
in fragrance somehow more sweet-
we shall sit in some corner,
tucked away from time
gathering dust unto ourselves
in an age old love of sorts-
your shelf or mine?

or so the refrain goes..



© 2013 Maitreyee B Chowdhury 

Lines under a street lamp

The shadows are long in unknown streets
the insects hovering over sick neon lights
like strangers from faraway lands,
they look beautiful under shadows
and die in the sun, each day.

A small boy sits in its jaundiced light,
sick and yellow with hunger?
Somewhere from a remote gali
Pakeeza comes alive-

I climb a rock and read a poem,
I scream I shout and enact,
at my nonexistent audience.
They clap in their busy songs,
in callousness strewn over each other.
A black moth approves-

People fill the roads like rats,
milling over-
careless, faceless,
hurry in every crease.
Lovers pause for life,
behind a lamp, a shrub?
Life lives for a while.

A phone rings,
my shadows come home-
On the road back,
in pieces I become my role
and play it.

 © 2013 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image from http://www.google.co.in/imgres?start=353&sa=X&biw=1024&bih=653&tbm=isch&tbnid=8L_NUUlUKQ9ctM:&imgrefurl=http://www.colourbox.com/image/medieval-deserted-alley-at-night-with-yellow-street-lamps-image-2226054&docid=1SfwfSpqpLGqgM&imgurl=http://www.colourbox.com/preview/2226054-706585-medieval-deserted-alley-at-night-with-yellow-street-lamps.jpg&w=417&h=480&ei=OwSBUrDUD4TBrAewgIGICw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:71,s:300,i:217&iact=rc&page=19&tbnh=175&tbnw=145&ndsp=19&tx=78&ty=78 ) 

People watching @ Cafe Coffee day

 

I spent a good part of this afternoon at a Cafe Coffee Day outlet, where I had a work related discussion. As I waited for the gentleman I was to meet and sipped on my Darjeeling, I suddenly heard a high pitched female voice say, "I don't care who comes for the wedding or doesn't, who eats what or doesn't, who does what..all I care about is my dress, my make up and how I look". I nearly choked on my tea and looked up.

For someone like me who loves observing people, a Cafe Coffee day can be a dream. To my delight, I looked up to see a couple completely colour-cordinated. Hers was a red top and white skirt, his was a red Tee and white pants. They sat with a woman who looked like a gypsy returned from Goa. Over the conversation I realised that the woman was a wedding planner. She periodically showered 'muaah muaah s' on the couple added with a 'you guys are the coolest'.

My smile got bigger and bigger, with the rather loud conversation. The wedding planner says, " And look at you guys, such togetherness in the colours". The girl shakes her head and points out, "But of course! CCD you know". 

The man takes out his phone in a bit, shows his school photograph to the planner, she squeals in delight. The girl says, " Its like a 40 year old tradition, you know..something like royalty"..shrieks again. 

The gentleman I'm waiting for arrives. There are more muaah s happening as the planner now plans to leave. The icing on the cake? The couple left to themselves kiss for long..some conversations end beautifully after all.

'Where Even the Present is Ancient: Benaras'

'Where Even the Present is Ancient: Benaras' is a book that tells the little stories that make us who we are. . The author believes that Benaras resides in all of us Indians, in some beautiful often unknown way. The author is the Sutradhar, in that she attempts to connect an India that many do not realize exists, in that it is everybody’s story. Radha, Krishna, Ganga, Benaras and Me are all characters in this deluge of poems.This attempt at telling the story of the ancient, of love and of faith is to instil the confidence that poetry exists in all of us, all that is needed is to smell its fragrance. To those outside India, the book does not seek to be a representation of what India is or was, but a whiff of what it also can be. It is an attempt to ask people to see the little stories that govern all of our lives, stories that we often don’t see, but those that are important. A poem from the book goes thus-

-A Fisherman’s Ganga-

I sat on a dingy boat,
Looking at the Maha Aarati
on the Dashwamedha Ghat.

Seven priests adorned their Ganga
in every human way possible…
Tourists shrieked, conch shells sounded
humanity applauded.

I lit a small lamp and let it flow
Into the unknown corridors of faith-

A fisherman sat nearby
Perched on the helm of his boat
Looked at the skies,
And spat some Benaras
Into his Ganga.

(Dashwamedha Ghat is one of the main Ghats in Benaras, where every evening the Ganga Aarati takes place. Thousands of tourists and residents flock to see the Aarati, which has become synonymous with the pomp and glory attributed to Ganga.)

*The book is also available on Infieam, Flipkart, Amazon, Bookadda and Crossword bookstores

Available at- http://www.infibeam.com/Books/where-even-present-ancient-benaras-maitreyee-b-chowdhury/9789382473848.html