Bow Barracks, Calcutta

This is a watercolour of one of the oldest buildings in Calcutta going back to an era of the World War 1. This building in Central Calcutta houses the last few members of the Anglo-Indian community. This community which was conveniently forgotten by our politicians gave India the best generals, teachers and musicians. Bow Barracks Forever is a film made by Pritish Nandy and directed by Anjan Dutta. It highlights the problems faced by these wonderful people, the building itself in disrepair is in the verge of collapse. The film moved me to an extent that I thought of making this watercolour. I dedicate this watercolour to Pritish Nandy, Anjan Dutta and obviously the Anglo-Indian community who live there.

Waiting for you in Calcutta
Waiting for you my love
Come dance, dance, dance at the Barracks...
Come dance, dance, dance to the end of love
Come dance with me at the Barracks....

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

Remembering Tapan Sinha

the stones remained hungry
as palaces and kothis overturned
a night crossed over from guarding
an extinct royalty
to streets of Kolkata
where the youth tore off
its resplendence
stabbed by a fury
of political landscape
yet the night survived
its heart throbbed
images grew from
white and black
fact and fiction
summer and winter
and crowded the birds
once despondent of
hope
Tapan Sinha merged
with this
night today
days of untoward resolute
in its finery
crystal eyed
he continues to show
us all.

FimmakerTapan Sinha born on 2 October 1924, left us today. He was arguably the most uncompromising filmmaker outside the orbit of parallel cinema. This poem is inspired by his two movies Khudito Pashan (Hungry Stones) based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore and Aapon Jon, a film about the Naxalite Movement in Kolkata.

January 15 2009

Charcoal Drawing and Poem 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

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