For the dancing girl’s statue

Hey dancing girl with lotus-lips, carry on with the tango that you had left unfinished

Sway through the earth-scape once cherished, across errors and the angles that are blemished

Dance like the childhood that is gone behind, defying the sculptor and that history and mankind

Your supple curves like waves untamed and blind, hair floating and your dove-eyes wild yet kind

Geometrical frame; dangling bracelets; rippling energy on the forehead as sweats; desperation or disobedience – your hands on the waist,

 Those passionate feet in motionless symphony

Decorating the cabinet-shelf, frozen motion, your statue hey dancing girl, is the cruellest irony.  

That day

That day there was a dense dark cloud in the sky

The breeze was strong and it made the dust and the leaf run helter-skelter, and fly

The trees unfurled their leaves, quivered, shook off the droplets to see those men walking by
And oh how beautifully the flowers bended with an urge to satisfy

About those men - one was drenched, one rain-clad
 Another was happy and the other was a bit sad

One forgot to wear her kohl-liner and the butterfly-garland that she had
One was forgetful in love and wandered like a lost nomad

That day it rained sharp and also pretty heavily

But the day was sweet and was smiling at all coyly

Then the waterlogged lanes and platforms sang in tune fostering fantasy
Seeing them the red and blue umbrella whispered music in rapt rhapsody

Some noticed; some ignored; some were in a hurry to walk away fast

And no one knew who was hiding a shattered soul and who killed someone’s dream with a brutal thrust.

The unease - letter to Ruru

Hi Ruru,

I was thinking of you today. Hope you are doing fine. But we aren't! :) ... you know, it is as if the world has changed altogether! 

I had gone out to buy essentials and provisions for the home. Nothing seemed familiar any more. A group of watchmen stopped us asking a hundred questions inquiring about why we were going out and when we would be back etc. And all that was for our safety. We all looked weird, faces covered with masks, gloved hands desperately clutching onto the sanitiser bottles, eyes gleaming with the nervousness of survival. The streets were empty, vacant, in an eerie kind of way. The shopkeepers, the vegetable vendors, the salespeople at the departmental store, all looked worried and scared. The fear was not just for the deadly virus but also the diminishing prospects of their businesses. There was hardly any stock on the shelves.  Manufacturing units are closed, services are stopped, transport is at a halt and there is no new stock coming any more - they piped in an anxious tone. You know, Ruru, the stores too looked so odd as all of them were kind of half-lit and ready to close down at any moment. the shelves with clothes, cosmetics and toys were pouring out as there were no buyers but just one or two packets were lying here and there for rice, dal and edible oil! it was uneasy feeling to realise one's basic survival need. The whole scene was from that of a movie but it's just that no one knew when the movie would end. People were sitting on the road; no they weren't beggars but they were labourers. Jeet had bought fruits for all of them and the way they snatched those from him reminded me of a scene of famine that I had watched in a movie. My heart was palpitating hard in panic as this world was not the one I have known so far.

Ruru, Italy doesn't remind me of Art and fashion anymore, Paris doesn't remind me of romance. China's wall appears weak and the Statue of Liberty looks vulnerable. My perception, my memory, all are invaded and jeopardised. I, the mother, who would give anything to be with her son, is now asking him not to come to India for the entire year. Love is now staying apart. Hugs and kisses are a curse. 

I do not get ready to go to the office in the morning, no one rings the doorbell. Chatterjee aunty died from Cancer but her children couldn't come from the other State because there were no flights allowed. My mausi-aunt died in Kolkata but the entire family could not attend the cremation as not more than 4 were allowed to be together at the crematorium. If you are sick, people would be looking at you with suspicion and not sympathy. Hasn't the world changed overnight? 

Will the caged humans (including I) now understand the worth of living, the value of humility, Ruru? 

This too shall pass like all the good and bad things in the world. But those of us who would survive and come out of this deadly phase will surely not be the same persons. I just hope that we become better.

 But whatever it will be the music must go on!

P.S. - Did I tell you before that I find your eyes quite hypnotic? :) ... This music is for you Ruru ... someday I want you to close your eyes and dream, and then my beautiful dreamer, please wake unto me ...