And buried underneath

Under the earth,

They lie in muddy albums

Burnt, buried, rotten!

Who are these?

Poor cousins!

Far, far off my lands

Their nourished thoughts

Woke up from the same bed

Sounding strange in disfigured ribs!

They froze and shivered for a quilt

But I thought they were dancing

And gave them ghungroos*

They died with them, tied in their bones.

I wouldn’t dig them out,

For there’s more to come

To sleep under the bed of coloured tears

The earth prepared to take some more...

I am busy making ornaments,

I will ignore the tremor

Behold the dance.

When they’d shiver in their imprisoned frames!

I am keeping the berth soggy enough,

Not to struggle too hard to scoop the concrete

For some more needs to be burnt,
And buried underneath

Note: Ghungroos: also known as Ghunghroo or Ghunghru or Ghungur (Bengali) or Salangai (Tamil) is one of many small metallic bells strung together to form Ghungroos, a musical anklet tied to the feet of classical dancers.


Explanation:  This poem

1.      Is a take on ‘clarity’, on specificity, on bondage that ‘I am this and only this; I am not that’! How does clarity help I wonder! If I said with utmost clarity not to fight or to rage war, or to produce weapons for mass destruction, it doesn't help... this is just one among myriads of examples.

2.      Is only about ‘feeling’, and I am heartened  to see that although many things are unclear, it makes for a reading

3.      Has one central theme, viz. torture and pain
4. Is also of 'understanding' a/the problem instead of being adamant in providing solutions

Interpretation to this poem depends on the experience readers are going through at the moment of reading. For example, it could be about 'flesh trade’, about devadasis, of a probable punishment of the wrong-doers, and so on! However, it also talks about our inability to connect with the ‘real’ cause; therefore shivers are interpreted as dance, and when the remedy would have been quilt, it comes in the form of ghoongroos; a corporate example to this would be giving apples instead of oranges. Our situations of torture do not change because our reaction to situations is seldom a response, always a reaction, therefore the remedy is a quick-fix. But the interesting part is that we know deep inside that the remedy will not help, therefore I am prepared with soggy berth because i know there’s more to come. In what the last stanza looks as a punishment, it could also be a looked as acceptance... because this is also something that the poem wants to say, that it is perhaps through acceptance of our situations that solutions might emerge.

I must also quickly add that the writer’s interpretation is not sacrosanct... the poem wants to connect with readers above everything else, and therefore the poet is also a reader. Yes, in this poem, nothing is so clear, a dollop of ice-cream floating as clouds can also appear as cotton...it all depends on how readers interpret it. The position of the poet is at the base, at the bottom of things just urging to connect.