choice

This was to happen,

Sky showers nectar and poison at the same time;

Choice has no choice:

Conscious, unconscious,

Buds bloom and disperse

As stories are sung in the background, or on the stage

From the ground despite predicaments!

The shell doesn't have grievance when the egg pops out,

Rushes into an eager mouth;

A moving tree doesn't regret,

When its perfume sneaks into a stranger’s veins;

Desires oozing out of the barks dead or alive,

Back and forth, in moments flowing in and out:

Without shape and measurements!

shades of weather - some triplets

Wind on the meadow

Husband gifts a green saree

From the silk outlet

Please give me your hands
Gently as the waves ashore
For the rest I need

Image in the clouds
A child feeds a little child
Rains washed the headache

Leaders with white hats
A broken booth abandoned
Tensed voting weather

The first summer rain
The Sun and the Moon change looks
Busy ants unearth

some triplets

Mom waiting with a
Towel stretched… the wet child comes
Rushing into it

Evening time… father
Drinks tea, Mom cooking good food,
Children do homework

Wind on paddy field…
Green grasses dancing freely,
Farmers smiling wide

Frogs are croaking…
Sparrows bathing in the dust,
Rains not far away

Darkness has fallen,
Pitch dark, crickets call fire-flies,
Forest plays darkroom

destination

From here,
I take off...
Don't know
If the pillars carry the time 
And the count of the stories I wrote,
And scrapped,
In the same place...
Spent the ink
From the pens that linked
Me with you,
Pages again surface afresh
In journeys that rest anew...

with different names

with different names
Doors all around;

With different names…

From all corners, closed;

Efforts are on, for opening them one by one

Hurling abuses and curses!

Walls big and huge;

Safe, secure, with different names…

Of strange food and language;

Talks are on, for breaking them one by one

With all the dressing weaknesses!

Blind doors and walls with different names;

Frozen cold on the ground…

Unwilling to warm up;

To break open

Despite the deafening sound!

Walls and doors;

For so long crafted by souls…

With different names;

Cracked in silence

Seen sleeping tired on the surface!

Finally a feather touch, they melted

The shell, with different names!

This poem is dedicated to my elder brother, Sri Sourav Sen, an English teacher at Birla High, Kolkata on his birthday (22-April).

nature

world in me

witness

peace

Charlie Chaplin – 125 years later

“Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the silent era. Chaplin became a worldwide icon through his screen persona "the Tramp" and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death at age 88, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.”

I was initiated to him by my father with whom I went to see ‘The Kid’ when I was 12. Like most of you, I can talk about all his films in detail. But I am not going to talk about that.

I am going to talk very briefly about his mixture of slapstick, pathos and social commentary in most of his films…something that touches a wider range of audiences transcending nearly all barriers that threaten democracy, even today! This is something I fondly refer to as ‘Charlie Chaplinisation’!

I have seen my domestic helps, with whom my childhood is inseparable enjoy his films inasmuch the same way as my father and his intellectual friends would. This is a quality which very few artists could match; a craft where he did not ignore any sub-text and or co-text in the master text that he was creating. Artists in every field are free I presume, and it would appear as an imposition for most to be conscious of whether their texts, be it films, songs, stories or poems, would appeal to all sections of society. You could argue that it is not possible to appeal to people who are not able to read and write through poems and stories. We could innovate and build in audiovisuals along with the written texts to reach out to them. The question is if we are ready to shred off our standoffishness in order to keep our intellectual alignments intact for a larger cause. Imagine a world where more and more people would take interest in reading and writing… how the world would be!

In my opinion, I think it is a craft worth emulating, especially in an era where we talk about inclusiveness. And promising thus I pay my respect to Charlie Chaplin after 125 years!

[Source of the first stanza: Wikipedia]