Janpath Days

janpath market
checking shawls,
life effervescing then in a close knit pashmina
i thought of words written on bargain threads
not knowing breaths had sealed then
an oddly different sky
at a connaught place middle street we kissed
life flowed in each other quashed in the shawl
within lips
i asked of a river
it had always escaped
afternoon of repertoires
of smalltalk
in a faint punjabi accent
touching your tongue
i saw a sun went hiding
in our ancestral sharing
eyes closed in pursuit
we hurled in colours and stars
of another momentary season.

Poem / Pastel / Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Gwalior

many aeons back
when rock changed faces
many a times and clan men
resisted irrefutably
time
the sky always gave way
to unhindered horizons
to newer lives
in dust torn
revelry
each time we passed the long
languorous tunnels of
waking
each time we found
ourselves on ledges
of looming betrayal
the fort grew taller and higher
overlapping many a skin
many a shadow
many a summers
and i thought
perhaps one day
you would tell me a secret
of holding the lizard
in my grip
of a moment
knee deep in a drying river
of your breath
navigating a stronghold
of refute
you told me
the ruddy earth would also change
the peacocks would be no more
fungus and fern would darken
such agreements
such love
insisted
and we would remain torn
answerable only to the wind.


why did we run away each time the
sun changed surfaces
why did we cross eye storms
ensnared long hidden stars
why did we eclipse in patterns
of lip talk on your neck
why did we turn one and only one
burnt one single night
why did we then never die
why did the fort
keep silent
why


beneath us
deep down
stayed the dargah
the mad man danced
looked at us
in sightless eyes
we had seen him before
much before
when the hot wind
blew away advancing
and departing reasons
a maratha willingness to melt away
at each nightend
we saw him still
shaking his head
his hands sang the song
of the next blitz
the dead around in cavernous
holes never slept
we knew
the rainriver
would storm down
in crypts and crevices
in sultry memory lanes
weather broken thickets
on to those
living and buried
we knew then
it was the moment
of a quiet dismissal
of unhastened departures.


families left for far shores
and houses sprung up on
rusty dreams
a dishevelled robe dragging
a far innocence
hands sought to hold a
belief
and eyes stored tears
unbelieving
on your lips i saw a murmur
loves disparity rootless in
undefined times
i told you the stillness of the fort
stillness of our drifting
stillness of the riversong
stillness of an everydaysky
yet
we lived
shattering long drawn thoughts
in strange dawns
in
old gwalior.

Poem and Ink Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

One day suddenly

one day suddenly
we meet again
on another road
in an evening rain
pelting thoughts
there would be nothing
just like before
neither an umbrella
nor any people around
the shops too would be closed
the rain on our heads and feet
the smell of wet earth in our hearts
and i think of you again
our promises
our lost hurts
our marriage graffiti on another wall
a rain turns blue
and the sky ashen
one day
just on that day
nobody can see tears in this rain
the road still remains the same
only there are no more people
one day
in an evening rain
the smell of wet earth in our hearts...
did u marry somebody
did we ever grow older
did we turn to our strangerselves
again.

one day...

Inspired from a song of Anjan Dutta, Ekdin Brishti

Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Old Delhi Cafe

this happened again
on a strangecafenoon
river days flew where a distance
left a crooked wind
a lone fort gaunt
daring again to remember
memories stuck to mirrors
we had seen each other so
often then
cups, glasses and lips
all together
happened
again

and in the midst of a forest
sleep
our eyes
once again rode
many a writhing
storm
voices staged suddenly
where i had once touched you

again.


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Eucalyptus Dreams

these are eucalyptus dreams
growing in suburban trains
sometimes in the hub
when connaught place turns a zero
and a sky stays behind
we always managed to move out
summer surprises
inhaling
an old delhi rickshawallah
remembers himself
in his last ganja smoke
shadows don’t adhere here
anymore
the edge is just
another place
we stayed
and faintly
you are still with me.


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Connaught Place Blues

We had once walked around
Connaught place for hours
Trying to solve a puzzle
Of a day in its stately columns
Holding aloft the far shores
Of an unfamiliar sky
Morning of jigsaw pieces in The Book Worm or
Keventers
Mind shopping at the pavement
For love poems
Rushing to embrace
Colors, lips
At a backthought corridor in
Dhoomimal Gallery
Our legs ached
Going round and round
Just trying to be somewhere
Until the one legged man in Dass Studios
Appeared from nowhere
As Susmit Bose’s voice from the gramophone
Bent down to pick us
Loving was an afternoon
In a season that finally fell in its
Rightful place.

Poem and Charcoal/Ink drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Chennai, after the rain

it has been raining since morning
and carol king is blowing my mind since then...
Pritish Nandy


chennai
after the rains
takes on a new
vibrant
understanding
chennai to me has always
been the abode of gods and goddesses
pelting
words of substance
sometime in a steep incline
and from my rugged interiors of gwalior
i thought
of sandal pasted foreheads
and eyes sure
of non entities
bejewelled ladies talking of
circumstances
in uneasy words
and lifesmell
responding
only to nonbelievers
until the rains came
a carnage of green
shook the streets
spirituality
of sorts submerged
an umbrella
gave refuge
to whispers
of yet another love.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Dechen

we met at a thimphu sunday flea market
there was mist all over
the crowd spoke in gregarious tones
like mountains hunting for lost ones
there was mist on her face
her lips balanced an era
of happening
mist on her kira
hiding
somebody whispered
that’s dashoam
our princess
and i remember speaking to her in shameless
colors
curves
woven forests
even in sleep
next to the log fire
i thought i spoke of the earth
beyond  mountains
and chortens
we would leave
having touched once
sundays we met
and parted
buying always laughter
exchanged odours
when are you going to wear the boku
when would you make me a dasho
she laughed and laughed
a sky just opened up
a mist went thicker
amidst the staring gargoyles of tashikodzong
tired dragon roofs
grunting yaks
nobody saw us embracing
an unsheltered sun.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Chandni

the empty city streets that don’t dream anymore
an old midnight choir don’t sound like before
the mirror street memories of homemade wine
an elegy of old sunshine
reminds me of you.

Anjan Dutta from his song Bow Barracks Forever



that was another strange evening
the market at chandni was flooded
old landscapes
trying a takeover
old aromas remaining nascent
and an old view thought
sensed greenery
yes, it was really long back
longer than moments
turning eventually blunt
longer than lanes
i seem now to have forgotten

on such an evening
colors of sari revolted
the old lady embroidered an uneventful sky
in a din unravelled
do u remember i had suddenly
chosen to brush my lips
on your hair
my hand in your hand
we were swept deeper
belief then was never
unheard of.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Gwalior

when did i last see you
in an alley of closed darkness
you once said reasoning remains
an unflowering tree
stalking the mind
stalking the heart
stalking sand
in parched throat
benumbed fusions
and a rough wind
i looked elsewhere
aggression had always
been a new
dawn.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Southernwood Jacaranda

jacaranda colors in november
violet is not the river nor a street
not even an insidious sky
it’s just another time creeping up trees
at night
past dreams
and lips
a train screams down in
collateral junctions
past known faces
and uncalled remembrances
am i there
have i left
violet is daylight
seeping nerves
patterns of unequal
destiny.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

sudden trees

so sudden were the trees
they too searched the sky bend
in groups of solitary living
i who have nothing left
stood within them
and thought of the dried river
and its soil brittle amongst
stars at night
did i disappoint u
did i fail to answer
did the sparrows wait long
did i touch your hair
yes
and yes again
and that was just not loving
years after the trees
grew wild and so did
a blatant sky
sunset
a far window to
your once home
still remains closed.

Poem and Ink Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

mdantsane far off

far off from mdantsane
the hills rose in unison
over another thought
the earth here is a mere straggler
memory is bestowed
as unseen remains the fog
and our meeting in distant
breaths

a train seems to have
left from somewhere
else.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

buried sea

west bank
east london
the sea closes in
departure
sun froth swings in
long lost tales creep back
moist grass makes up
for the lost time
a sky shifts back
to old alleys
my face wet
i can almost hear
a call of
muzzein from
the dargah of
khwaja khanoon
at home

and
the old and buried
remains the
sea.


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

forest

words and feelings grew rampantly
in a forest of distant thunder
in sleep
in corrosion
only the eye flickered
catching a ray
sometimes
strange is this time
stranger is you
strange is unresolved
mindful
of
tomorrow

dawn
the fort banks off
at another
angle.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Gwalior ravines

summers and ravines
a banditry of a sworn
sky
and beyond that....
your laughter took strange hues
this would always remain gwalior
a dusk pervades the seeming
closeness
and eyes droop
to your warm touch
cold is the marble sheen
cold are your tears
cold is the ravine earth
gwalior sleeps
an angry sky stalks
the night
a river
long lost to
tales.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

sleepless...

there is no sleep
and these bloody sleeping tablets
brings back always the pain
addiction is pain
blackening the moon
blackening the dreams
black is where i live and i ask
you in wakefulness
why straying is combat
in an approaching desert storm
and lives just happen during that time
of birds, dogs and trees
restless
as another culprit night
demises in ardent failure

i deny another day
think of you
and throttle my car
towards a land
unheard off

again.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Hiranvan Kothi, Tales of Gwalior

chotu angre was murdered
in a swarm of swallows
in a red rain
his laughter
shattered
myths of unsteady walls
hiranvan kothi
remains trapped in the present
a clutter of hens and houses
seem to be catching up with a
forest on concrete cacophony
a rusted royal insignia
was hanged without
judgement
decay remains fresh
embroiled
in
memories

loving you
seems to have
happened
only
yesterday.


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

when everybody had left

when everybody had left
you
me
and even the despot ruler
of
our fate
the fort one night came down
and touched us
it hid us
in its wrinkles
from an unruly horizon

nobody dies, it declared
the lust of this tree
our porcelain past
the breakaway season
conspiracy unhinged at nightfall
your names etched in the first drop
of a gwalior rain

nobody
really dies
here

nobody.....


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

old fort

the blistered road to the old fort
goes on and on
like all tired summers here
scrappy greens try to hold on
to its last outpost
an uneven sun tries to breakthrough
the northern walls
invasion has always been the rule of
a mortal day at gwalior

only
you
remain
unknown


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra