IPEN - Poems by Maitreyee B Chowdhury and Pranjit Bora

My Homeland

In pensiveness and in subjectivity,

My mind hovers over the times that were…

When touch down is but an aerial feel,

My soul touches base in matters more than one

Of a childhood spent in games,

Of flowers and seasons in the rain

When running after dragon flies was a pastime too serious

To think of a career was all but tedious…

When running in the fields was akin to life...

Oh such were the joys of childhood alike

Today I have perfumes that smell and allure

But what is it about the smell of the land that overpoweringly endures-

In times of sadness it gives me hope

That little tinge of HOME as I know, is still within my scope

No matter where or how far I go,

The touch of my land shall linger within me…

In joys so sweet and memories so fresh

I shall think of a HOME I never left.

In coming back to it, as lovers who never parted be…

Home is the smell of my lover I never left for thee

In corners and nooks I shall discover home again,

In a scratch here or a song sung there, I shall recollect it all with pain

Of friends and lovers, in loving memory they come all…

As my eyes delight in places that were mine,

I touch and feel and go back in time

When love and life stood still as time

As if for me waiting for a lifetime –

My eyes moist with the song of joy as I touch the land I never forgot,

Of friends and loved ones, just a whisper away…

Never shall I smell the same again

As I drench myself in my HOMELAND again

As the wheel of my dreams do a touch down on the soil of joy

Years of childhood come back at once

When the mind all at once rings in joy

My land, my land... here I come…

All over and over again.

                                --Maitreyee B Chowdhury, USA

Tonight

Tonight again, these tiny quiet neem flowers

Your breath is turning white

Your entire body is turning white

And a fragile white virgin night

Is running around your first monsoon tresses

So thick, noiseless – for whom are you waiting like this at the window?

So blue, quiet – whom are you searching for like this in the moonlit grass?

For whom are you waiting like this, does he have on his body the smell of ripe, lush fields

With both hands have you pulled up a laden branch

Are the flowers falling all over your body

On the edge of your breasts and the tresses of the nights?

Are the neem flowers falling

Are you getting drenched

In the crisp festive night?

                                --Pranjit Bora, Barpeta

                                    Trans: Anuradha Rajkumari Gohain, Delhi